Al-Kitaab Fii Ta'allum Al-'arabiyya/A Textbook For Beginning Arabic, Part 1 [With DVD]

by Kristen Brustad, Mahmoud Al-Batal, Abbas Al-Tonsi

"Al-Kitaab Part One" is the second book in the Al-Kitaab Arabic language program and is now available in an extensively revised and reorganized third edition. This book with its companion website develops skills in formal and colloquial Arabic, including reading, listening, speaking, writing, and cultural knowledge, integrating materials in colloquial and formal/written Arabic. It provides a comprehensive program for students in the early stages of learning Arabic.

FEATURES- Four-color design throughout the book with over 100 illustrations and photographs - Color-coded words and phrases throughout to easily follow the variety or varieties of Arabic you want to activate -- Egyptian, Levantine, or formal Arabic

- Introduces over 400 vocabulary words in all three forms of Arabic side by side

- Presents the story of Maha and Khalid in Egyptian, and now Nasreen and Tariq in Levantine, in addition to Maha and Khalid in formal Arabic

- Expanded grammar explanations and activation drills, including discussions about colloquial and formal similarities and differences

- New video dialogues from everyday life in both Egyptian and Levantine to reinforce vocabulary in culturally-rich contexts

- Develops reading comprehension skills with new authentic texts

- Reinforces learning through extensive classroom activities and homework exercises that provide constant review

- Includes Arabic-English and English-Arabic glossaries, reference charts, and a grammar index

- Reduced from 20 chapters to 13 chapters, the course now more closely corresponds to two semesters of college study with an average of 4-5 contact hours per week

- Textbook includes a convenient DVD with the basic audio and video materials (no interactive exercises) for offline study that will play in iTunes and compatible MP3 players

- New companion website (sold separately) -- alkitaabtextbook.com -- features fully integrated interactive, self-correcting exercises, all the audio and video materials, and additional online course management and grading options for teachers "Al-Kitaab Part One, Third Edition" provides 125 contact (classroom) hours with approximately 250 homework hours. Students who complete "Part One" should reach an intermediate-mid level of proficiency.

Genres: Language, Reference, Textbooks, Nonfiction, School, Linguistics, Middle East

384 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Kristen Elizabeth Brustad

Reviews

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't see why this book has so many negative reviews. It is far and away the best language textbook I have ever seen. The exercises are clearly designed with an understanding of how second languages are actually learned, and the new grammatical concepts and vocabulary are introduced gradually and used repeatedly so that you learn them and then learn them again until you remember them. Obvious as these points seem, it's amazing how often they aren't done.

The reason this textbook seems to be difficult and unsuitable for learning alone is because it focuses on teaching independent language learning and language using skills, rather than explaining everything exhaustively and getting the student to rote learn it all. Thus, not all the vocabulary that turns up in a given chapter is present in the vocabulary list at the beginning of the chapter - some of it you learn along the way, often simply by seeing its use in context. Many of the reading and listening texts are "too difficult" in that they are introduced before the student has learned all the vocabulary and structures included in them. However, this is done along with explanations of how to deal with the fact that you don't know all the vocabulary and structures included in the texts - and like everything else in the book, these explanations are introduced gradually and these skills are developed gradually. Since in real life, when using a language you are in the process of learning, you will inevitably be faced with situations using vocabulary and structures that you don't know, developing these skills is crucially important.

Similarly, grammatical concepts are frequently introduced without explaining them properly. Although I found this very disconcerting at first as it was completely different to how I had learned languages before, I am now completely converted. For example, if you know how to say "but", you can suddenly express a whole lot of things you couldn't before, and the fact that "but" in Arabic is part of a class of grammatical-thingies-whose-name-I-can't-remember-but-they-make-things-around-them-accusative is not a particularly helpful thing to know and will just go in one ear and out the other. But introducing grammar in this way means that almost from the very beginning you are able to talk about interesting things. The details of each concept are then introduced later. Being able to express vaguely complex ideas early on makes the whole process of language learning much more enjoyable. I still have some quibbles about how some specific grammatical concepts are introduced, but this hardly takes away from my appreciation for the general approach.

To my astonishment, I even became invested in the stories of the characters that unfold over the course of the chapters. I won't spoil the ending, but I actually really want to know what Khalid and Maha think of each other.

All in all, I can't recommend this textbook too highly. If you want to really learn how to use a language and how to learn a language, rather than just how to rote learn endless lists of vocabulary and verb conjugations, then look no further.

[Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is absolutely maddening. It doesn't define most of the Arabic words you're supposed to learn, it just uses them in hopes that you'll get the meaning from context. That might be a nice approach if you have tons of time to watch every second of the DVDs, but personally, I'd rather just memorize and be done with it. The layout can be confusing, too.

No wonder there were only two FBI agents who spoke Arabic before 9/11. This was, and is, the most widely used English-language textbook for learning it! And it's awful. Alif-Baa by the same people was good, but this just doesn't work.

[Jonathan Biddle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished it. A decent book but with a lot of flaws and ridiculous stuff in it. It's not the kind of book you would want if you are studying Arabic on your own. Too many things are left unsaid and I'm glad I had good teachers to guide me through it. The vocab is pretty pitiful and the constant mixing of Egyptian pronunciation with fusha gets downright annoying. Lastly, every story is depressing in this book. You would think everyone in the Arab world is depressed and focuses solely on their problems if you read this book.

Thankfully, that's not true and this book is still helpful in navigating the tricky waters of Arabic--as long as you have one of those teachers who is unlike the Arabs portrayed here (and they're plentiful).

[Matal “The Mischling Princess” Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

It all started with an ethnography. When I was an undergraduate, I conducted an ethnography at a military base. While I was there, I met several Middle Eastern soldiers who were in a military police training course. Two of them—one an Egyptian and the other Saudi—really impressed upon me the beauty of Arabic. The Egyptian soldier gave me a mix tape on CD filled with Arabic music. After that, each time I heard someone speaking Arabic, it sounded like music and I looked everywhere for a good resource to learn the language.

AL-KITAAB FiI TA’ALLUM AL-ARABIYYA is one of the best resources to learn Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). While this book is used in classrooms, it is also a perfect resource for self-learners as you can also buy other associated resources (like the answer key!). One thing to remember is that this book teaches MSA, not colloquial Arabic (how people speak Arabic in different countries). This is perfect because no matter where you are SOMEONE will understand you, unlike many language courses where they will teach Arabic using country-specific Arabic. I’m of the opinion that once someone learns MSA, then learning a variety of different colloquialisms will be a breeze.

The accompanying videos are great; they speak MSA slowly and clearly. I recommend studying at least 5-6 days a week.

[zakariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

why am i learning how to say united nations (have forgotten tho ngl) before ik how to describe my family

[Aidan Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about a gripping romance between main characters Maha and Khalid, their ups and downs, Khalid’s smoking habit, and Maha’s strained relationship with her parents. It explores themes of diasporic tensions between those back home in Masr, and the changing culture of the Middle East and the West. You might learn some Arabic too.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my first Arabic class, we worked through the first book in this textbook series, and I found it very helpful in learning the Arabic alphabet and some basic initial vocabulary and grammar. But this second textbook . . . it's still helpful, but it seems more difficult and frustrating than it ought to be. Here are a few reasons:

Vocabulary: The new words in each lesson come from a series of stories about Maha, a university student in New York. Because of this, the vocabulary sometimes seems odd--for example, learning the Arabic word for "United Nations" in the first lesson. I felt like I wasn't learning some key terms that I needed at the time when I most needed them.

Dialects: I'm still very timid about my Arabic comprehension, and reading fluency, spelling, and pronunciation are still slow and limited. So it was not helpful for me to have to start thinking about Egyptian and Levantine dialects as well as MSA at this early stage. The online supplementary exercises (a core part of this textbook) requires listening to at least one of the dialects, and for me, this was just extra busywork that I didn't need.

Online exercises: I'm glad that the textbook includes audio-visual exercises and other drills on the companion website. However, I often felt that the website exercises were needlessly tedious. The first exercises in each lesson are dictation: listening to long sentences that include new vocabulary words, and writing down the sentences. Especially early in the textbook, this was very hard for me, and having to transcribe a set of 20+ sentences was a really difficult and uninspiring way to begin each lesson. Also, the whole website has a very Web 1.0 feel. The UI is not at all intuitive in current ways, and so using the website was not a pleasure.

Even more than with the first textbook, this one demands a teacher who can guide you through it and help you understand the important points more intuitively. I was blessed to have a wonderful teacher, and so her classes became my primary means of learning, with the textbook as a supplement. I do not think this textbook would be suitable for self-study. A future edition could be excellent--the raw material is mostly all here--but it needs a major revision.

[Alisha Lakhani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this is a decent book for studying Arabic with the support of a teacher, If I were to embark on a quest to learn Arabic independently I would struggle a lot. For one, the grammar is learnt erratically, you learn one form of the present tense I during the first few chapters however you encounter the other forms much later on, which leads to confusion as you have to unlearn information to understand more. Additionally, none of the reading texts are vowelised which does not aid the enunciation and pronunciation of new words. Additionally, most of the initial vocabulary doesn't help conduct conversation, for example: why is United Nations taught in the first couple of chapters but more important vocabulary is not converted until very later on.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

as if learning arabic wasnt hard enough already. a pretty crappy textbook, poorly organized, but love love love the story of Maha and her sad sad life.

[Liên · Rating 2 out of 5]

Still the weirdest language textbook I’ve ever had the misfortune of studying from.


Reading this monstrosity, then and now, makes fluency seem like a pipe dream of mine. Then I got access to enjoyable native content, and realized that it’s not me nor the language, it’s the book…

If you have to study AK, you have our sympathies (Dubious benefits: You’re now in on some very specific insider jokes. Plus you’ll be weirdly invested in Maha, Khalid and their sad, sad lives.)
If you don’t, run. Now.

[Floris Ouwerkerk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Difficult to navigate. Companion website is not useful. Grammar is explained in a very chaotic way. Americacentric (teaches you Los Angeles before teaching you Cairo). Way too overpriced.

[Zoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book will teach you Arabic, but you won't enjoy it.

I get the impression that this book is intended for the perfect student--not just the A+ student who works hard and has experience in studying languages, but the student who has endless time on his hands and remembers every word after seeing it once.

It often seems that the authors have gone out of their way to make this book as difficult as possible, based perhaps on the premise that students are lazy and will take advantage of any crutches they provide. Maybe they're right. But I'm not convinced that taking away the basic supports leads students to try harder than they otherwise would; it may just make the whole process slower and lead to increased levels of frustration.

A case in point: the table of contents is almost entirely in Arabic, in a book for beginning students who have just learned the alphabet. Will they struggle through the list of Arabic words when they're trying to find that grammar explanation from a few weeks ago, or will it be both faster and easier to flip through the pages until they happen across the section they're looking for? From personal experience, I can say it's the latter.

The grammar explanations themselves aren't always easy to understand. The example sentences tend to be full of the current chapter's vocabulary, which was often seen for the first time only days before. Of course, the ideal student will have memorized all of the new vocabulary immediately. The average student will more likely miss the point of the sentences, or at least waste time flipping through the glossary that could be better spent actively studying.

It doesn't help that the grammar explanations use Arabic words whenever possible, and that these grammatical terms aren't listed in the main vocabulary to be memorized for each chapter. Instead, each chapter has a list of additional words at the end, without the convenience of their meanings. So again, time is spent flipping through the book to find these words, and they're ultimately not learned as well as the words in the main vocabulary. The result is that the grammar sections become harder and harder to follow.

To increase the student's frustration further, almost the only reading passages in the book are "authentic"; i.e., not written with the beginning student in mind. The idea is that the student will pick out the few familiar words from a paragraph, thereby gaining an understanding of the basic idea. Besides the fact that this doesn't work at all if you happen to forget one of the key words, it's just not satisfying to "read" only passages that are too advanced for your current level. There's no sense of accomplishment at all.

The book does have some good points; it comes with multiple DVDs, so the student can get plenty of practice in listening to the language, and I found that everything seemed a lot clearer when I read through it again before beginning my second-year course. As I was actually working through this book, though, I have to say I found it pretty painful.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers a decent introduction to Modern Standard Arabic, but the authors tend to introduce words in with conjugated / participle form, only later explaining the core grammatical concepts that underlie these surface forms. It is surprising to me that a textbook on Arabic would not explain the triliteral consonant root - verb form pattern relationship until the final third of the textbook. Knowing this from the start would greatly simplify the process of learning the language.
My other criticism is the tendency of speakers to slip into Egyptian accent / dialect on the included DVD, this needlessly complicates the learning process.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books to learn Arabic from. Of course it's not good enough to allow you to learn it on your own without prior knowledge of the language, but when used together with class, it's great. It has excellent explanations of how to pronounce the various sounds, how to write the letters, and gives various lessons on cultures and the difference between dialects.

FYI...It is Egyptian dialect. If you want to learn Arabic, classical is best. But Egyptian is the second most recognized dialects since most of the Arab movies come from Egypt.

[Smuel Mackereth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, whilst good in its pace and layout, presents an overly complicated and unnecessarily difficult method of exercises and information to students on anything but an intensive course. Grammatical rules and vocabulary are hard to find and the book often introduces grammar and vocabulary in exercises rather than lists and explanations, whilst this is undoubtedly partly due to the alphabetical divide and english instructions the overall effect is confusing and makes the book difficult to use without teaching.

[Jaime Davidson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to use this textbook for learning Arabic in college and it was not a good introduction to the language. It is clearly geared towards those interested in foreign policy with specific interests in working within the government. You learn how to say United Nations before even learning one color or item of food. I’ve studied from this series of textbooks for 4 years and still had to independently teach myself kitchen utensils, most foods, common phrases and terms, etc. If you want to learn Arabic in order to actually speak the language this textbook is NOT useful.

[Emily]

Do not buy this textbook if you are attempting to teach yourself Arabic. Without an adequate teacher, you will be quickly lost. This point aside, Al-Kitaab teaches a huge breadth of grammar and vocabulary. It provides learners with a solid start in the language, though the sporadic nature of introducing grammar is frustrating.

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it half way through this book in an intensive summer program. Not worth the time, especially if you are not in a class. This book will not teach you arabic. If you do happen to be using this book for a class I would recommend some supplemental reading to help with grammar and vocab.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

The presentation of vocabulary and grammar is not in a useful fashion, and the grammar lessons are very unclear.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently learning Arabic, and it is useful, but it is hard to teach yourself...but with a professor it is an excellent...

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm learning Arabic. It's for a class. It'll take until at least next spring for me to finish it, due to class pacing.

[Aliya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really sure about the rating, to be honest, considering I already know Arabic. It appears to be useful, but ultimately the benefits to be gleaned depend on the willingness of the student.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great as an in class text with the right instructor. Even better with the right group of fellow learners..

[Giorgi]

It is very good book

[léonie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wouldn't say that I am 'reading' this book, but it is the book I open most often these days!

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really difficult for self study. Use tools like memrise instead. The DVD feature is obsolete now.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best first year Arabic text book!

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, and particularly good for the cds that help with sound recognition/pronunciation, but not really for the independent learner. I much preferred the very traditional approach of the New Arabic grammar or the oldest editions of the Teach yourself books. The sort that gives you clear grammar points illustrated by written sample sentences, accompanied by a set vocabulary to learn.
Then add in the pronunciation and conversation, once you know your fiy from your kalb. But that's my preference.