Arabic from the Beginning [Part One]

The purpose of this book is to set students on the road to learning
Modern Standard Arabic by equipping them with all the skills they need
to read and write vowelised Arabic texts. By the end of the book
students should be able to:

identify all the letters of the Arabic alphabet in their isolate and joined forms

know the difference between the long and short vowel sounds and how to read them, including the diphthongs ay and ow

read the tanween word endings

understand the roles of sukoon and shadda

read words containing a hamza, no matter its position within a word

recognise the alif al-maqsura

identify the sun and moon letters and understand their effect on the pronunciation of words defined by al-

read fully vowelised Arabic text

Although
this work is primarily intended for classroom use, it is also
well-suited to self-taught learners. To this end, an audio CD recording
of all the materials in the book will be made available to help foster
good pronunciation. This workbook assumes no prior knowledge of Arabic
whatsoever. Clear, simple explanations introduce each new topic,
supported by a wealth of exercises and activities, thereby helping to
reinforce the learning process and to ensure rapid progression. The use
of colour coding to highlight each point under discussion, as well as
the inclusion of quality colour illustrations, serve to enhance the
learning experience. The materials included offer extensive reading and
writing practice as well as the opportunity for dictation exercises as a
means of monitoring the learners progress. By the end of the book,
students should be sufficiently competent in reading and writing the
Arabic script to be able to progress to part two of the series in which
they will start to learn Arabic grammar and vocabulary; read and
construct sentences with understanding; and begin speaking this
important international language.