krissness's "Useful Books/Materials For Students of Modern Standard Arabic"

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These are some of the materials that I have consumed/will consume in my attempts to learn Arabic.

Nos. 1-4 are quite helpful in learning the alphabet. Alif Baa is most helpful for self-learners, because it has a CD for pronounciation. All of these will try to teach some basic vocab.

Nos. 5-6 are the best tools for learning grammar, in my opinion. Some people hate "the orange book" (as it is fondly, or not-so-fondly, called) but I think the explanations of complicated grammatical points are superior.

Nos. 7-11 the famous (or notorious) al-Kitaab series (of which Alif Baa is a part). The advantage of these books is that they supposedly teach you more real-world vocabulary than the orange books. No. 9 is intended for second-year students and will really sharpen your reading and translation skills, but the grammar explanations are confusing or non-existent. The whole al-Kitaab series suffers from this problem. Also, the books are really more of classroom manuals for teachers – there are lots of activities proposed and very few explanations. If you decide to use them on your own, you will need the answer keys. The first and second volumes have been updated and now come with CDs, so there is a lot of listening and viewing that you can do.

Nos. 12-13 are the best dictionaries out there. Hans Wehr is tops for Arabic-to-English and al-Mawrid is the same for English-to-Arabic (most dictionaries don’t contain both aspects, like you would get for French or German).

Nos. 14-15 are grammar and verb reference books. I find that it helps to get an explanation repeated in different ways, so I like these kinds of things. Not neccessary at all though.

Nos. 16-17 are for the Arabic verbs. Arabic verbs are awesome and beautiful, but sometimes confusing. Each Arabic verb falls into some kind of group, based on its pattern. Therefore, if you know the conjugations of a group, you can conjugate any verb in that group. 201 Arabic verbs shows you the models for the various groups. The Verb Clinic CD Rom is only somewhat useful. Not neccessary at all.

Nos. 18-21 are for building vocab, both basic and more advanced. The MSA Vocab Clinic is much better than the Verb Clinic, plus it acts as a little English-Arabic dictionary on your computer.

Nos. 22-end are Arabic books that I will consume in the future.