Mastering Arabic 2 (Palgrave Master Series

by Jane Wightwick

Following on from the hugely successful beginner's course this is the first modern, engaging, intermediate Arabic course offering lively dialogues, varied exercises and fascinating cultural insights. This is the only user-friendly, accessible second level course on the market. It suits incredibly diverse learner base - self-study, through community college and school, to university primer/first year course. It is highly illustrated with clear page design. It is written by well known authors who promote their own products widely. It follows well established trade presence through "Mastering Arabic" and its companions "Grammar" and "Script". This is a new second level course following the hugely popular "Mastering Arabic". Written by the same authors, it uses a highly effective methodology to suit a wide range of learners, making it the most accessible, carefully-paced and lively follow-on course on the market. It contains 304-page book and 2 audio CDs.

Genres: Language, Reference

312 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 2009

Reviews

[Liên · Rating 5 out of 5]

If my Arabic ever gets anywhere, I have this series to thank (sorry, asaatidhati; sorry, Carol habibti). Everything advertised in the intro blurb is true.
Finishing Mastering Arabic makes me (yet even more) salty that I had to start out with al-kitaab. The language is still hard, but it doesn’t feel impossible anymore. Now I can kinda start watching shows and parse newspaper headlines.

PS: Semitic languages are very cool to learn about, but a PITA to actually learn… I’m still trying to get used to a language where consonants matter so much. My brain can’t seem to remember or register consonants that quickly.

[Peter N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's got a few problems, like a bunch of typos (mostly in the latin transliterations, and mostly in the later chapters) and some grammatical points weren't given as much coverage and practice as I would have liked, but it's still the second-best book ever for learning Arabic - Mastering Arabic 1 being the first. I was pretty surprised when I realised I could actually tackle some of the daunting writing tasks with the knowledge I learned from the book. It really pushed me to start using the language freely and writing on my own. Rad.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book. Teaches a lot of new vocab, has really good audio, and the drawings/images throughout bring the words to life.
Unfortunately, unless you plan to sit at home and read books + watch news all day, then (aside from the Media chapter) it's quite useless. No one ever uses Standard Arabic for daily communication in the Arab world.