Question

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.  

First, Thank you for  this wonderful site.

I would like to know what is the best way to learn Arabic for a non-Arabic.  I am a student (engineering) with a "limited time". A friend told me about an open university for distance education (http://www.open-university.edu/), how do you rate such method.  Also may you recommend some good grammar books. I already can read, and do understand some grammar basics.  My objective is to be very fluent in Arabic.

Thank you for your help

 Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.

Jazakum Allahu khairan for your comments.

We have looked at the Open University and its classes and what they offer for English speakers is a degree in Islamic studies.  There are Arabic classes in the curriculum, but we are not sure you would reach your lofty goal of being fluent in Arabic through these classes or not.  You would however, be able to study at a pace suitable with your University student status, but do not know if you could take only the Arabic courses; you would have to ask the Open University about this last possibility.  You could then move on to more advanced Arabic study later. 

Grammar books that explain Arabic grammar in English terms are usually very confusing, and we highly recommend studying Arabic grammar with Arabic terms. This could only be done with an Arabic teacher, so may not be possible in your situation.  If there are Arabs good in grammar at the University you attend, you might be able to study with them using the same grammar books used in Arabic elementary, and middle schools and progress at your own pace.  We caution that there should be emphasis on the Arab tutor being very good at grammar.  Arabs that have studied through high school in Syria are usually quite good at grammar.

We apologize, but we are not familiar with any Arabic grammar books in English (or in Arabic for self study) that we could recommend.  There are many available online that we found using a search engine, but we have not reviewed them. 

You are most welcome.