Arabic (Eastern), Basic: Learn to Speak and Understand Eastern Arabic with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur)

From the very first words that came out of the narrator's mouth ... "you are speaking to a woman from Syria..." I knew this was usless for me. Anyone who's into Arabic in the slightest degree first learns that the most common forms are Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic. So to advertise a program as only 'Basic Arabic' is beyond deceptive. Also, as everyone knows with Pimsleur you don't have any written material. I don't understand why they won't incorporate that into the programs. Arabic is hard enough to mimick with all the glottal sounds without considering doing it with no written reference. Cheapskates I guess. Anyway its a good technique IF you want to learn SYRIAN arabic or have a glossary with you to search every word used which goes against the convenience of listening in the car.

I got this for my 11-year-old daughter to prepare for an immersion camp in Arabic this summer. She really loves it. She listens to it at night, and is very happy with the entry-level material.

This is a great find, inexpensive and easy to follow. You definitely get your money's worth out of this. Only thing that would make this better would be if it came with written instruction as well, but like I said, considering the price, I can see why it's not included.
Would definitely recommend this product to others learning how to pronounce commeon words and phrases.

This is a 10-lesson set on 5 CD's, 1/2 hour per lesson. The lessons have an English-speaking narrator with two native speakers, a man and a woman.

I bought this set because I had used Pimsleur to learn Russian several years ago, and I found the Russian set effective. Like the Russian lessons, these Arabic CD's are good too.

The Pimsleur philosophy involves repetition, and starts out with practical words to learn. Often when I encounter foreign-language educational media, the words being taught are not the most important to be learned first. Also, often I encounter rote memorization. But not with the Pimsleur CD's, everything is built around sentences and phrases and conversation. When you first come to a country, you want to know how to say, "excuse me" or "can you speak English," etc. I only wish the Pimsleur CD's included things like "How much does this cost" or numbers.

One thing which would also be nice is an accompanying booklet, just to see what the words look like in print. Arabic uses a different script as you may know, so this is difficult, since many Arabic consonants are not found in English, (making it difficult to write in Latin script) or there might be two different consonants which represent the same sound, only one is given more emphasis; for example there is "seen," soft "s" like "sit" and "Saud," a louder "S" like in "Snake." And then there is "ayn" and "ghayn" etc. which have no equivalent but sometimes show up in words in the Pimsleur CDs.

But it is part of the Pimsleur philosophy that you learn the language like the native speakers do: by speaking first. But I think it is a good idea to have some printed material as well, because the speakers are not always 100% clear. Plus I think they use vernacular: for example, they will say "kif ek" for "how are you" to a lady, but elsewhere I see "kif halak." Also "nayn" instead of "ithnayn" for "two."

At some points there is a steep learning curve; probably the first one you encounter is where you have to pronounce "good morning;" "sabaH al-khayr" which needs lots of work to get right, and I don't think enough time is spent in the lesson. Although there is plenty of repetition in the CD's, I recommend going through each lesson 4 or 5 times before proceeding to the next. Or, as I do, stagger the lessons so it doesn't become too boring; for example in the following order: 1,1,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,3,2,3,2,3, etc.

A small annoyance you might find with these CD's, if you're female, is that in some cases, the narrator asks for a response from you and then when the native speaker repeats the correct answer, it is given in masculine form only. So if you are a female, it is not the correct response. In many cases, the CD's will offer both responses, but not always.

One last small annoyance is that the package does not make clear what dialect of Arabic is taught on the CD's. It is the Syrian/Lebanese dialect. They should make this clear on the package.

But overall, I was pleased with this product.