Arabic Tutor or Lisan ul-Qur'an

[Jadeed]

I'm looking to study Arabic outside of a professional context (classes, etc) and was wondering which of these books I should use. I have access to someone (my wife) who speaks fusha and studied nahw and the like, so she could also help.

I read Sunni_Student786 recommending that a person start with Fundamentals of Classical v1 and the Madinah Book 1 before moving onto anything else, but I'm still unsure of which to go with- Lisan ul-Qur'an or Arabic Tutor?

What does everyone here think?

[Sunni_Student786]

My brother, even though both series are good, I think that Arabic Tutor is probably better if you are self-studying; the explanations are more clear and I think that it covers Sarf better as well.

And as you've quoted in your initial post, I am a HUGE believer that any native speaker of English studying Arabic should first complete "Fundamentals of Classical Arabic: Volume 1" as well as the first book of the Madinah series before going on to any other series or method of learning. The Madinah book introduces you to nearly all of the fundamental structures in the Arabic language and the "Fundamentals of Classical Arabic" book does the same for understanding regular verbs.

I hope that this post has helped insha'allah.

Wa'salaam.

[Jadeed]

My brother, even though both series are good, I think that Arabic Tutor is probably better if you are self-studying; the explanations are more clear and I think that it covers Sarf better as well.

And as you've quoted in your initial post, I am a HUGE believer that any native speaker of English studying Arabic should first complete "Fundamentals of Classical Arabic: Volume 1" as well as the first book of the Madinah series before going on to any other series or method of learning. The Madinah book introduces you to nearly all of the fundamental structures in the Arabic language and the "Fundamentals of Classical Arabic" book does the same for understanding regular verbs.

I hope that this post has helped insha'allah.

Wa'salaam.

Ok, . I assume you have finished all these, what are your abilities in reading like?

[Sunni_Student786]

Ok, . I assume you have finished all these, what are your abilities in reading like?

Disclaimer: Lisanul Quran was/is not used as my primary Arabic learning educational series.

As far as reading abilities are concerned, it is by no means smooth. That is due to several factors, chiefly the fact that I have not been consistent in my Arabic studies. However, in addition to that, my primary difficulty while reading still has to do with the recognition of irregular verbs (which is getting better) and a lack of vocabulary (it becomes frustrating spending more time looking up words than actually reading). For these reasons, I recommend a student who is "self-studying", to do two other things in addition to what I have already advised:

1) Do NOT skimp on SARF! Make sure that you know this science like the back of your hand. I was (and am) impatient when it comes to Sarf, finding it especially boring as compared to Nahw, so I would often rush through Sarf lessons and sometimes not even fully complete the exercises once I somewhat knew what was going on just to get it over with. DO NOT DO THAT. If anything, if you have the patience, after completing book three of Arbi Ka Mu'allim, it wouldn't hurt if you were to both read the explanations and do the exercises contained in the book "From the Treasures of Arabic Morphology" (though you probably do not need to spend much time on what is covered in the first 160 pages or so which deals with regular verbs as that will be very basic and will have been ingrained in your head if you make it to the third volume of Arbi Ka Mua'allim).

2) Memorize the vocabulary in the book. Do not go on to the next lesson until you've memorized the vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, vocabulary acquisition is probably among the EASIEST things to accomplish but that doesn't mean that it happens quickly. Honestly, it shouldn't take you no more than a day or two after doing the exercises to memorize all the new vocab provided you make an effort to do so as the vocab is presented to you throughout the book in very easy to assimilate "chunks". Furthermore, you can kill two birds with one stone if you make an effort to memorize those sentences in the book, either occuring as examples or part of an exercise, that both contain a few vocabulary words AND help illustrate a grammar point that you may have struggled with or you are sure that you'll probably forget unless you readily see it used or use it yourself.

I hope that this helps as well insha'allah.

[Sunni_Student786]

Update:

I am not sure if the thread starter will view this or not but I did want to add something to my previous post.

There is one very important reason for why someone might choose Lisanul Quran over Arabic Tutor (aka "Arbi Ka Muallim") and that reason is that there is an answer key in english for Lisanul Quran while no such thing exists for Arabic Tutor. This is probably very important for someone who is learning on their own who has no one to help check their answers.

Additionally, Lisanul Quran appears (though I have not sat down and literally countdown the number of exercises and their size) to have a greater number of exercises than Arabic Tutor. In fact, it has so many that I think that some might consider it over kill (though not me). So if you are someone who learns quite well from doing exercises or who needs it to hammer things into your head, Lisanul Quran might be the better option.

Wa'salaam.

[Sunni_Student786]

I happened to chance upon the opinions of the amazing Arabic teacher Mufti Yusuf Mullan of the renowned Shariah Program (www.shariahprogram.ca) regarding the use of Arabic Tutor (aka "Arbi Ka Muallim") and Lisanul Quran. Perhaps the thread-starter (as well as others) may find it of benefit. His comments can be found on this thread here: http://forums.shariahprogram.ca/stud...e-books-2.html

Regarding Arabic Tutor vs. Lisanul Quran for someone self-studying, the Mufti had this to say:

My wife studied and also taught this Lisanul Quran book when she used to study/teach at Jami'ah Binnoriyah in Karachi.. I remember she used to talk high of it.

It might be a book though which is better studied in a class format with a teacher as opposed to on your own. The tutar book mentioned earlier in this tread is something you can complete on your own, so that's why it would be more recommended at this stage.

Regarding Arbi Ka Muallim in general, the Mufti had this to say:

Those Arabic Tutor volumes are excellent books. We used to read the urdu originals when we were beginning. They were never part of the curriculum but always highly recommended... plenty of exercises.

The format of introducing the material is quite different than how we do it.. but that's a positive thing as you get to study the same material using various methods. It will make things even more clear.

....

and

Those exercises (in Arbi Ka Muallim) aren't really supposed to be challenging in the sense that you aim to get them all right. That's not what they're for.

It's more to do with vocabulary building. The rules are clear.. if you get the first one right.. they should all be right.. since they all follow the same rule.. you do them to build the vocabulary. At least that's how I seem to remember them.

I hope that this was helpful insha'allah.

Wa'salaam.