Reddit reviews Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds [With DVD]
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Georgetown University Press
You could probably start with alif baa (which is an introduction to the letters of Arabic) and then move on to the Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya series that follows. You can find torrents easily.
https://www.amazon.com/Alif-Baa-Introduction-Arabic-Letters/dp/1589016327
Let me gather up the links for the materials I've found, this will be for Darija and MSA.
I'll edit when I've gathered them all, it might take a little bit though.
EDIT:
A-okay! I probably missed a few links (and probably double linked stuff) and this post is probably going to look like a mess, but that's okay, because I can always go back and fix stuff. : )
I’ll be linking stuff either to websites, to books (as you requested) that you can buy through Amazon, or to other stuff that I've found.
Just to get it out of the way, if you’re into pirating, then there’s this massive learning pack you can download.
Master posts:
Anyway, for MSA, Alif Baa is typically the book most learners start off with in order to learn the alphabet. In this book it covers MSA, and the Levantine and Egyptian dialects and it comes with a DVD/audio.
There’s also this book for the alphabet too The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read & Write It
As another poster has already brought up, there’s the Al-Kitaab series with Part 2 here. Not self-teaching friendly at all.
There’s also:
And here’s some more link vomit:
Youtube:
For Darija, it’s really difficult to find resources for compared to other dialects, but here are some that I’ve found over time.
Books:
Links:
Youtube:
Other:
There’s also this in person course in Rabat that many people have spoken highly of.
I had that Arabic writing book.
This one is also good.
I've been trying to self-study Arabic, and I feel like it might never be a candidate for Duolingo, unfortunately. (Two years on-and-off and I can make simple sentences! Yay!)
For one thing, there's a lot of sounds that are just plain difficult for non-Arabic speakers to get a hold of: ع is the worst, emphatic consonant pairs are a pain (ت/ط ;ك/ق ;س/ص...) and given the common complaints about TTS quality in other language, it might make hearing the difference between them impossible. Which would make properly learning and understanding it impossible. (ETA: The trick is: forget about the "pure" vowels you get in European languages. Arabic is spoken very much towards the nose and the front of the mouth. Don't be afraid to sound "whiny," it's how you hear the difference between regular and "emphatic" vowels.)
There's also the issue of diglossia (multiple dialects in common usage, sometimes switching between the two in one sentence) . There's Modern Standard Arabic"(الفصحى) which is sort of like a newscaster's dialect: it's clear enough that most everyone understands it, but nobody really talks like that in day-to-day life. A lot of the Arabic courses I've looked into recommend supplementing that with a local dialect, but then which one would we choose? (I want to say Levantine is used a lot on TV shows produced for the region, Peninsular Arabic hews closer to Classical Arabic than the others because it was the birthplace of the language, Egyptian has the largest minority of speakers, and Moroccan/North African still represents a significant population? Could be wrong, feel free to correct me). I want to say each one of them is more different from each other than, say, American English vs. Australian English; i.e., it's not just "Moroccans think Iraqis talk kind of funny," it's "only catching every third word because it's so different").
I mean, I guess it might be doable, but it's a lot harder to do than, say, Romance- or Germanic-to-English, and it might be too much to ask a crew of volunteers to build a "game-able" version of it for free.
I've used TenguGo, Madinah Arabic, and cough DIGITAL COPIES ACHIEVED THROUGH PERFECTLY LEGAL MEANS cough of Alif Baa:Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds to get started.
I am using Alif Baa.
I know the al-kitaab series gets a lot of hate, and to be fair is pretty much useless for self study, but the intro book "Alif Baa" was quite good for learning the alphabet, in my experience. Like /u/xbrightcursivex said, breaking it up into groups with similar forms is helpful. Plus Alif Baa has some nice audio components that will help you get pronunciation down
I would suggest Mastering Arabic for learning Modern Standard Arabic (the written form). It seems to be a pretty good introduction to the language. What really helped me learn to write Arabic letters was Alif Baa.
For Egyptian Arabic, I have been dabbling with Kullu Tamam. It assumes you don't have any prior experience with Arabic and uses a transliteration system (i.e. written with latin letters). Their goal with using this system is so that you focus on the language itself, rather than focusing on both the language AND a new script. Bear in mind, it uses linguistic terms such as "demonstrative pronouns", "possessive suffixes", "genitive construction", so if you are new to 2nd language learning, these terms may be new. But I have no doubt you can learn these terms very easily.
OR, you can finish book 1 (and maybe book 2) of the Mastering Arabic series and move on to Kalaam Gamiil, which is geared towards people with a lower-intermediate knowledge of MSA. The book is completely written in the Arabic script aside from grammar explanations and vocabulary lists. The audio is exceptional for this text.
There is also Kallimni 'Arabi Bishweesh, which is apparently almost exclusively written in Arabic. It appears to be written mostly in Arabic (including instructions for the exercises), so reviewers say that it is much more accessible when used with a teacher or native speaker. I can't comment too much on this book as I am still waiting for my copy to arrive :).
Bottom Line: If you want to learn to read and write Arabic first, pick up Mastering Arabic 1 and Alif Baa. It will give you a good introduction to the formal, written side of the language. Alternatively, if you want to learn Egyptian Arabic, check out Kullu Tamam. It won't teach you to read or write the script, but it will get you speaking some basic Egyptian Arabic right away as you begin the lessons. Whichever book you get, make sure you get whatever audio component (CD) that comes with it (if you buy used, like me).
If you wish to learn both MSA and dialect in one book, you can try the Arabiyyat al-Naas series. It focuses on Levantine dialect for conversations and MSA for reading and writing, which is how Arabic is used in the real world. There is also an older book by the same author called Living Arabic which does the same thing. After studying in this way and understanding how MSA and dialect is used, you can then choose to study purely MSA or purely dialect books to reach more advanced levels.
Arabiyyat al-Naas
Living Arabic
The Al-Kitaab series also tries to teach both MSA and dialect but I believe it's not catered for self-study and is very difficult to use especially for a beginner. It is mainly designed for classroom use in American universities. Its precursor book, Alif Baa seems alright to use if you have not yet learned the Arabic script. You can read the reviews here:
Al-Kitaab
[Alif Baa] (http://www.amazon.com/Alif-Baa-Introduction-Arabic-Letters/dp/1589016327)
Alif Baa & the Al-Kitaab series are pretty amazing. You can definitely do a self guided bit with Alif Baa to learn your letters and sounds- iirc the book is only $30
amazon
I would avoid Rosetta Stone, imo, it doesn't work as well for Arabic as you'd think.
I made a post recently about the sources I'm using to learn Arabic online:
http://www.reddit.com/r/learn_arabic/comments/2ohdgm/great_resource_for_learning_arabic_online/
To summarize: