I recently received Arabic educational materials from Tuttle Publishing to review. They have a vast selection of language products from the Middle East and North Africa.

These materials could not have come at a better time, while I am improving my Arabic to head back to Morocco and my teen starts her winter break soon. We received four items total, so I’d like to break down how each one worked or didn’t work for us.

The workbook Salamaat! Learning Arabic with Ease: Learn the Basic Building Blocks of Modern Standard Arabic was designed as the first building block once you master the Arabic alphabet. It does not teach you how to connect the letters or how they are pronounced, but rather helps with sentence structure and learning the gender endings of words. The book was a little advanced for my daughter but perfect for me that I found myself taking it along on bus trips to work on worksheets. The book came with a CD of conversations which my daughter found more useful, to help hear how letters and words sound.

We also received two flashcard kits that help learn Arabic words with cards and an index booklets. Volume 1 starts easy with the first 28 cards devoted to the alphabet. Each card has four ways in which that letter is used in different words. After the alphabet, the cards have an Arabic word on the front with four derivations. On the back are the same words, but with corresponding English translation. There is also a sample sentence using the main word. The kit comes with a 32 page booklet.

Volume 2 has 448 more flashcards and includes a 48 page booklet with more key abbreviations and pronunciation guide. The cards in both kits come wrapped in a paper band, but there is a number in the upper left corner to help keep track of them all once the band is broken. The index included in both booklets has the words alphabetical in English, but gives the number on the card so they are easy to find.

We also received a little Survival Arabic Phrasebook & Dictionary: How to communicate without fuss or fear INSTANTLY! guidebook. My daughter loved the drawings inside, set up like comic strips, that showed various conversations. I loved how easy the words were to read and that many were in both Romanized form as well as authentic Arabic script to help with pronunciations.

Whether you decide to buy all four of these together, or each one alone, on your path to learning Arabic, they would make a great addition to any classroom or home use.