Complete Arabic with Two Audio CDs: A Teach Yourself Guide (Ty: Complete Courses) (Arabic Edition) 4th ed. Edition

I received my Complete Arabic today together with the other language aids I ordered only a short while ago and they were not even ordered together. I am impressed as usual with Amazon's service and the only time I order else where is when they will not get things back in stock.I have only flicked through my copy a few times and read a bit here and there to see if this book is what I want it to be and I can already recommend this set to others.I ordered Complete Modern Hebrew a couple of weeks ago and that was a disaster, where I ended up having to order a new study pack. The Arabic version is clear and concise. It has very good explanations and the signs are also clearly visible. I have previously bought Living Language Arabic and was not that pleased with that version at all. The pages started to fall out just after a couple of pages into the course and it was too much information crammed in on every page without proper explanations.Complete Arabic is a different world in comparison. I cannot vote for the correctness of the grammar etc as I am about to learn this language, but each chapter is well structured, easy to follow and everything you may want to know is explained in detail in my opinion. The authors really deserve a praise for their work and I cannot wait to get started as I know with confidence that this time round I will learn Arabic as I set out to do three years ago but gave up due to poor quality of study material.I followed other reviewers recommendations and also ordered 501 Arabic verbs, which I am really glad I did as it is an amazing book. Then Easy Arabic Grammar because of all the practice activities and yet another good book. Then The Arabic Alphabet - How to read and write it, which is great but not necessary as Complete Arabic has it all. Easy Arabic Script again for all the exercises, which are great and Modern Arabic Short Stories for when I can read simple to moderate difficult texts. The book is in both Arabic and English, which is a huge bonus as a beginner.I am a serious learner of new languages and personally I think it is a good idea to have several books to aid you on your way. I feel I have made the right choice in the books I have ordered for me to learn Arabic and I see no need for ordering more books to aid me. I think Complete Arabic also can do the job on its own and I would certainly not go for another basic study pack than this.

If you have the previous edition, then this will not be too much of a surprise. I do have to say, I like this one better; in the fact that its tighter, cleaner and a bit less unorganized looking. There are a couple of new features that I like about it. The packaging is better than the clear case which tended to break after a couple of times opening it; this one is a bit stronger. The binding seems WAY BETTER in this edition, as I know my complaint and many others, was that after a while the book literally falls apart with use. I don't think that will happen with this book, we'll see!I don't know why it says 496 pages, there aren't that many in the book--this one or the previous edition. Although, they have added a few more pages than before and it has more relevant and current items to bring it a bit more up to date, like about cell phones, laptops, and the like. At the end of each unit, they have "10 things you need to know", which is little side notes of grammar to inform you. Thankfully, they have not eliminated the Arabic script and there are no vowel markings to help you sound them out--yay! Although, for the section on telling time, they eliminated it almost entirely and changed the section citing "telling time in Standard Arabic is complicated". Huh??? It's not *that* complicated once you understand it and they explained it in the previous editions beautifully but I guess, decided it was not worth it anymore for this one. I don't want to quibble; but it made me mad because it was really a valuable thing to know and a great way to push your brain cells to thinking harder. Plus after 10-20 Arabs asking you what time it is all the time,(my experience only), it is cool to see their faces when you tell them and correctly in Arabic!I was really harsh in review about the previous edition until I went thru the book better and understood why it was the way it was but a lot of it was justified; it just seemed messy. This edition I like much, MUCH better. Even though it is sort of the same, it isn't--lol! The setup and layout is much improved! I haven't gone completely thru the CDs yet but from what I have listened to so far, the recording is still the same. The back of the book has the usual answers to the exercises and a few new things, like the little glossary of grammar terms and a grammar summary, as a bit of a refresher for those of us who have been out of school for quite awhile and need to remember what a verb or past participle is. It is not complete or cover all the grammar in the book but hits on the main grammatical points and that's enough. You will not regret buying this book if you have not done so already and if you already have the previous edition, it would be nice to have this one just to replace your old falling apart one! This is a good MSA course and you will learn a lot, especially if you have no Arabic knowledge already but remember, nothing replaces hard work and USING the language itself. You cannot attain fluency from reading a book, so don't expect that. Get out there and speak to native speakers!I just really like this new edition and glad that Teach Yourself has finally stop neglecting its course books and updating them. This book is fresh looking, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, more durable and yet, still has the same valuable information that makes Teach Yourself books the great resource that they are. Although, for some reason, some books they updated, like German and Korean, have nice color pics and glossy pages in the first few chapters but not all the books, especially this one. That is puzzling, I can't figure out why they would do that. I know that we all complain about certain editions or courses of theirs but bottom line is, Teach Yourself is a good resource and lifeline when it comes to language learning because if it wasn't for them, we would be pretty up creek as far as finding good, inexpensive and semi-accurate material to learn languages from. My dream would be if Teach Yourself or Living Language would do more advanced courses, like an Arabic or Hindi II/III (and be more accurate at current ones)and add more neglected languages like, Tamil, Hawaiian, Berber, Zulu or Native American languages but those are dreams only!Most companies that did language courses, no longer do them anymore or the stuff they still have left over and put out, are horrendously out of date (although, some are still arguably good)and hard to find. Barron's and Berlitz, haven't put out a language book in over 25 yrs. The "new" ones they are selling now are their same exact courses from the 80's with only a new cover; same recordings, same content, layout, pictures, etc. Amazon even sells copies of Berlitz' re-release of their 1950 editions of courses they did.(I have to admit, these are still quite good--get one!) Thankfully, there is a huge resurgence of people wanting to learn new languages--I think inspired by the large and ever growing polyglot community--and that is boosting or resurrecting a lot of language producers. That is great and will only benefit us in the long run.**Amended** I have to amend this to add, the CD's are somewhat the same material but re-recorded and they suck. The woman who is narrating is also pretending to be a native speaker and because of her heavy British accent, as she pretends, her accent quite clearly shows thru on just about every word she utters; and she pronounces all the letters and most words, WRONG. I don't know why they would take the effort and money to mess this up. Anyway, the guy IS a native speaker, so listen when he talks but not her. As you learn more, you will pick up and alter any words you heard from her, the right way so don't worry. Also, I was reading on another TY product review that they are in fact, NOT updating some books/courses at all, really, but just putting on new covers and keeping the same old, outdated content and raising the price! So BEWARE!! If you get one of these, I would suggest and encourage you complain to them directly, as the more of us who complain, then they will really HAVE TO update them and stop this mess. With this course, luckily, I have not found that but now, annoyingly, I realize 20% of the book is keys to exercises, verb charts and grammar charts; making the book only about 340 pages and they took out a lot of vocabulary. Still, all in all, Teach Yourself is better than nothing and some other courses out there and worth the $20.

Since many years I am acquinted with this series. I possessed about 30 titles. Old editions begane with the slogan : " Give wisdom to a wise man and he will be yet wiser". This is very true. Complete Arabic is an expert work. Step by step, from the simplest to more elaborated structure of arabic maintain the learner's interest always alive. In short, it is a valuable tool for all Arabic learners.

These materials are excellent for teaching Arabic to a group or to an individual. I use them for independent studies in introduction to Arabic. They work very well. The explanations are clear and the cds accurately and indispensably supplement the written material in the book.

This book definitely will teach some conversation and good standard Arabic but it lacks vowel markings and does not teach enough about writing. Also, cultural assumptions that are too broad (and more often false) are given.This book also has far too much transliteration in the later units (where there ought to be none) that is very distracting as you are trying to learn to read Arabic, not transliteration of Arabic.Get this, and a book to learn to read and write.

The culture tips and modern Arabic examples are very useful. For example, explanations are given of how non-Arabic words with "V" and "P" sounds are spelled in Arabic, and examples are given of how some letters are written differently in print and other media. I learned numerous things just within the first 10 pages.

This book is great IF you're actually sitting in a classroom with someone helping you go through it. We are using it in our class and I love it. However, I don't believe I could sit at home with the audio tape and book and learn by myself without a lot of difficulty.