Resources
The resources are above but I also want to offer some advice:
- Find a school that has the largest number of levels (i.e. stay away from a school that just have beginner, intermediate and advanced). The more levels the better because slow students bring you down and more advanced students will confuse you. It’s best to be in a classroom with other students who are exactly at your level. Look for a school that gives placement exams to see exactly what level you belong to. This shows they are serious and they know what they are doing.
- I was too intimidated to begin learning Arabic using Arabic letters and so I joined a program that taught with transliteration. I did fine. Eventually I used a simple book to quickly and easily learn how to read and write Arabic letters (The Arabic Alphabet by Awde and Samano.) But to each their own. Do whatever you have to do to start learning immediately.
- While at a certain point you should have an Arabic teacher in order to truly mimic the accent, having a non-Arabic teacher has its advantages as well especially in the beginning. If you are an American and you get an American teacher, for example, the teacher will have an easier time explaining grammatical concepts to you and understand why you might be having some difficulties.