text: any good books for learning standard arabic? i'd like to do some self-study before taking classes. went to amazon, and a book called colloquial arabic looked good. but most of the other recommended titles seemed to be unavailable (too old). thanks. i got thoroughly fed up with "colloquial arabic" .i find that all of jane wightwick's books are excellent. her introductory book, "mastering arabic" is still in print. with the cassettes or cds, it costs around £29. the book alone is around £15.  if you wish to delve into islamic culture, there is also "quranic arabic" by dr murty, with 2 cds, available from around £25 in any good, islamic bookshop.  as a learner, i found it useful to set a target of memorising 10 new words and two rules of grammar a day. copy examples of the grammar rules into a notebook to understand how the grammar works, then using previously learned vocabulary, compose new sentences similar to the examples .   you have to do something every day because you can soon forget words owing to the lack of any similarities with english. i test myself on the previous 7 days' 10 words before learning the ten new ones. (if you can learn 50 words a week, you will have mastered the basic vocabulary of 1,000 words in about 20 weeks and then you will have "broken the neck" of the language and can start making real progress. tell yourself not to give up for six months because it is a hard language and it's very tempting to abandon it early on. to reach a stage of 98 percent understanding, you need a vocabulary of 3,000 words for "a" level and 5,000 words for a degree.  the lack of similarities makes learning words very hard. i have a system that works but people think i am daft. i find substitute english words and associate them with the meaning of the arabic word, e.g., arabic for gospel is 'injeel so i picture a bible in jelly - daft? sure, but it works. horseman in arabic is faaris (written faarisun) so i picture a horse with faires on.  i really wish you every success because even though english literature is vast , arabic culture and literature is an ocean of enjoyable, different and often brilliant delights. enjoy the rewards of the hard work you are about to start.