Teach Yourself Beginner's Arabic Script

I am in the process of learning a bit of Arabic so I picked this up. I read through once tracing characters with my fingers and got through it in a few hours. I decided to go back with a pen and actually follow the directions (e.g. "read and write" followed by 12 or so vocabulary words), actually do the exercises, and actually do the tests at the end of each unit. I'm finding it takes about an hour per unit and I'm learning a lot more by actually doing this.

Once I'm done with that, I intend to do it all over again with the handwritten versions of the letters.

However, I wish the writing were a bit larger and there were more hints for how to write the characters and get them right. For example, I still don't the proper way to make a mim that is connected to the letters on either side and there is no information on the order to write letters in. Do I make all the toothed character lines and fill in the dots later? Or make the dots on each tooth? Since my goal is just to read (probably the real goal of the book anyway), it's not too important to me, but I still feel it's a bit of a deficiency.

Still, I am very happy with my choice to pick this book up. I'm spending hours upon hours with it, and my hand is getting sore. I can see my progress, and actually completing each exercise with a pen (not just tracing with my finger) is proving to really drive the writing system home.

Very good and informative content. I wish it was more "user friendly" in terms of layout.

This book is pretty good for starting out. It was a little confusing but over all broke down the language learning process and made it quite simple to understand and learn.

i've studied a lot of chinese character books and recently picked this one up because i've decided to learn arabic script as well. this is the best beginner's arabic book i've ever seen. in the introduction mace gives you clear tips on memorization that you can apply to anything else you might ever want to learn. the book is only 168 pgs long- but the wealth of information inside is astounding. the book is easy to follow, teaches you pronounciation, and grammer in a very clear manner. i've looked through many of the beginner's arabic books- but this is the only one i decided to purchase.

As was pointed out by another reviewer, Frank Gibbons, the vocabulary is very much geared to a bureaucrat who may travel to an Arabic-speaking country, and need to read road signs, talk to officials, etc. If one needs only to be able to read script this is a good book; it has exercises and self-tests and the units are not too much to absorb in a half-hour, so one can absorb the material in one section without too much trouble and make quick progress.
The book also introduces some English/American words spelled phonetically in Arabic, that a traveller or foreign worker might come across.
What I would have liked that that I know more would be an index by word roots, with all the derived words under the root. While I know that some older dictionaries are organized like this, and I wouldn't want that exclusively, it seems like it would be a good mnemonic aid while building vocabulary.
What I appreciate about this book is that it is clear, well-written and explains about word forms, showing patterns that you can extrapolate from in writing/reading plurals, definite articles, etc.