A month ago I was at the beach hanging out with a friend in the Army. He told me about a useful book called “All the Arabic you never learned the first time around.”
Then – not a week later a reader – with an excellent blog covering her Arabic studies sent me an email with a PDF link to this very same book.
These nine questions from the book’s introduction convey it’s Added Value better than anything else I might say:
For example, if you asked me before reading this section, I wouldn’t have been able to tell someone what the Subjunctive is, even though I know it without knowing what’s it is called. Now I could:
If you are a long-term student, not necessarily enrolled in a class, with other stuff on your plate, looking for creative ways to learn Arabic, this is a book for you.
Here is the Link.
nathan-field.com 
As a graduate of DLI and an owner of this book in print, I can attest that this book is a necessity for DLI students and really any student of Arabic. Particularly at the Defense Language Institute, they squeeze in so much in 64 weeks that you really miss a lot of the structure that this book provides. Especially if you are a dialect student like I was (Levantine). This book was written by a MLI (military language instructor) who understood the DLI process and what it lacks. Though I can admit I haven’t read all of it, what I have read has been beyond helpful in filling in gaps.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing this comment. It’s good to hear an opinion from someone who used the book within the DLI system.
When I had two separate wise and worldly Arabic students mention it to me, I knew I had to check it out. And it has lived up to everything they said it was.
For me, I know the grammar rules on site, from having in a variety of capacities over the years, read thousands and thousands of pages of Arabic in work situations, but long ago stopped even thinking about the names of the grammar rules etc, and to be honest, wouldn’t be able to cite the names of many of the basic grammar rules, if asked. But I plan on studying this book to get a better abstract grasp of that, as a next phase of my long-term Arabic studies.
LikeLike
I used to have a draft of the book that the author sent to me. You have to search to find his name in the current edition. It’s Jim Price (mentioned on page 11). I studied with him in Irbid, Jordan in the Virginia Yarmouk program, of which he was the coordinator at the time, the second year of its operation (I’m dating myself). The director of that program, Mohammad Sawaie, who is at the University of Virginia, has recently published an excellent reference grammar that is ideal for Arabic learners at all levels: Fundamentals of Arabic Grammar (https://www.routledge.com/Fundamentals-of-Arabic-Grammar/Sawaie/p/book/9780415710046) Like Jim, Sawaie has a talent for explaining of Arabic grammatical concepts in clear, concise, accessible English. I fell out of touch with Jim years ago, some time in the nineties, but I’m still in touch with Mohammad.
LikeLike
Pingback: 9 Arabic language takeaways from watching a brawl between an Egyptian Security officer and a Tunisian Lawyer – Real World Arabic