Teach Yourself Arabic Conversation (3CDs + Guide) (Teach Yourself Conversation)

So you know where I'm coming from, you should know that I study languages by doing a Conversational Pimsleur like Arabic (Eastern), Conversational: Pimsleur Language Programs, a TY set like Teach Yourself Arabic (Book + 2CDs)), and then a TY Conversation like this product. I've done this with Arabic, Turkish and Russian so far. It's a real hoot.

This Teach Yourself Arabic Conversation is the best of the TYC products I have tried. They've all been good. They all have ten good conversations on the first two CDs. On disc three, this product combines the mini-conversations of the Turkish TYC with the listening skill ideas of the Russian one and adds some practice in understanding dialect differences. And then it focuses all these things on the original ten dialogs --extra help, as it were. So for a three CD set, it offers quite a lot of goodness.

Also, this is the only one where the booklet was useful. I used the Russian and Turkish booklets about twice each just to clarify a too-softly spoken word. Even though this one is a romanized transcription --which is irritating if you read Arabic-- it becomes not only useful but necessary to the course. Arabic has so many sounds and dialectic variations of same that the booklet is your map out of the aural maze.

Finally, I think this is the best of these TYCs for beginners. The way it approaches the language and the way it explains how to use it will allow you to have quite a bit of Arabic in your head. You might spend two or three days on each of the half-lesson dialogs (20 for 10 lessons) and in practicing all the variations of sentences you can come up with from what you've learned. With these 3 CDs and a hard month or two of study, you'd have a surprising command of basic Arabic.

This is a great CD set for learning everyday conversational Arabic. I loved Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gafaar in their Michel Thomas Arabic audio series as well. They've also written several excellent books on Arabic which are available on Amazon.

This is the second Teach Yourself ____ Conversation course I have purchased. The first was Teach Yourself Spanish Conversation, which was quite good. This course is also good, however it does suffer from the fact that the speakers are using BOTH the Egyptian and the Iraqi dialects. While a person will still be understood if they find themselves speaking this mix of Egyptian and Iraqi dialects, if one is focusing on studying a particular dialect (Egyptian, in my case), it may be beneficial to ignore the speakers of the other dialect on the CDs.

The program covers most standard tourist and daily living situations a person may encounter. It is quite similar to Pimsleur, in that you are supposed to take part in the conversation and respond to questions, as opposed to memorizing words or grammar tables in isolation. The CDs come with a booklet, providing a transcription of all of the dialogs, however the transcription is transliterated and contains no Arabic script. One can use the CDs only and never look at the booklet. I would estimate that the entire course covers 350 words.

This course can be used by a beginner, although they may find it frustrating repeating each lesson several times, and most likely they would need to use the booklet as well. Someone who has completed another basic course in the language (perhaps Pimsleur or Linguaphone) could use this course as a great review and a tool for increasing their vocabulary.

I am making a short trip to Morocco...thought there would be some easy greetings....it starts right our with conversation...I possibly bought the wrong CD.

I had to buy this book because I kept getting late fees for failing to return the library copy on time. It's great for getting a basic grasp of the language but especially good if you can use it in conjunction with getting some help from a native speaker. The binding could be stronger though - the pages start to fall out if you study a particular section for very long...
It could be improved by including some more of the vocab on the cds too. But this is definitely the best overall book that I have found to date to give a comphrehensive introduction to Arabic.