Using Arabic: A Guide to Contemporary Usage

This is a guide to Arabic usage for intermediate-level students and above who wish to extend their knowledge of the language. Focusing on Modern Standard Arabic, it is divided into three sections: A vocabulary chapter showing which words are current and appropriate to different registers; a grammar chapter giving an overview of Arabic grammar with modern-day examples; and a chapter on varieties of Arabic, describing linguistic variation in the Arab world. Clear and readable, it is an essential reference for students seeking to improve their fluency and confidence in Arabic.

This book is well written and clearly presented. There is a long section that reviews how different words are used in Arabic and provides a lot of information I haven't seen in other "textbooks". The section points out differences between English and Arabic usage which is helpful. The last section of the book focuses on grammar, which provides a useful review. I would recommend this book to someone who already is at a high- intermediate level of proficiency.

The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic (The Phonology of the World's Languages)

Arabic is a Semitic language spoken by some 250 million people in an area stretching from Morocco in the West to parts of Iran in the East. Apart from its great intrinsic interest, the importance of the language for phonological and morphological theory lies, as the author shows, in its rich root-and-pattern morphology and its large set of guttural consonants.

Dr Watson focuses on two eastern dialects, Cairene and San'ani. Cairene is typical of an advanced urban Mediterranean dialect and has a cultural importance throughout the Arab world; it is also the variety learned by most foreign speakers of Arabic. San'ani, spoken in Yemen, is representative of a conservative peninsula dialect. In addition the book makes extensive reference to other dialects as well as to classical and Modern Standard Arabic.
The volume opens with an overview of the history and varieties of Arabic, and of the study of phonology within the Arab linguistic tradition. Successive chapters then cover dialectal differences and similarities, and the position of Arabic within Semitic; the phoneme system and the representation of phonological features; the syllable and syllabification; word stress; derivational morphology; inflectional morphology; lexical phonology; and post-lexical phonology. The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic will be of great interest to Arabists and comparative Semiticists, as well as to phonologists, morphologists, and linguists more generally.

This book is the first comprehensive account of the phonology and morphology of Arabic. It is a pioneering work of scholarship, based on the author's research in the region.

- Your First 100 Words Arabic w/Audio CD (Your First 100 Words In...) (Paperback)

For the first time, Your First 100 Words in Arabic is available with an audio program, making it an even more effective way to hit the ground running when learning the language. You can be confident that you are pronouncing words correctly thanks to this program's clear presentations, simple skill-building exercises, and games. Basic phrases are introduced that will let you use your new vocabulary in sentences and participate in mini-conversations.

- First Thousand Words in Arabic: With Easy Pronunciation Guide (Hardcover)

"First 1000 Words" is a picture reference book with numerous scenes similar to the picture on the cover of the book. Even though this appears to be a children's book, I recommend it to adults who are trying to learn Arabic, too. All of the words in the book are nouns, so a more appropriate title might be "First 1000 Nouns in Arabic". The book is really easy to use. Under each picture is the arabic word (in Arabic script). Beneath that is the English transliteration. This is helpful if you don't know how to read Arabic script or aren't very good at is. For example, under the picture of a fish, you will find the Arabic script, then the tansliteration of fish in Arabic, which is "samak". A glossary in the back of the book helps you easily locate the word you might be looking for and to clear up any confusion caused by a picture that could mean two or more things, like a picture of a wall, the word beneath the picture could be the word for "brick" or for "wall". The glossary eliminate this confusion.