When I printed out the book, the pictures did not appear. What is wrong?

We don't know exactly, but there seems to have been problems printing out the illustrations when using Adobe 9. In January 2010 we created a new file which seems to have resolved these printing problems. If you ever experience this problem, please send us an email via our submit form.

I see this book is available for free download on several peer-to-peer sites; some say they have the copyright approval to offer the book free. Is this true?

No. Anyone downloading the full text and/or audio files free from any site other than www.syrianarabic.com is breaking the law and will be prosecuted. We do not charge a lot for our material and all income goes toward running this site. Please don't support illegal activities and send us an email if you find any site offering our material for free. We have successfully stopped many sites so far, but new ones keep popping up.

I paid for the full text and then tried downloading but the files, but they had 0 (zero) kbs. What's wrong?

We are very sorry for those who experienced this problem in 2008. We discovered an incorrect setting in our secure download system, which we have now fixed. If you ever experience this problem, please send us an email via our submit form.

I can't seem to download some chapters. What is wrong?

First, please try refreshing your browser. If you are trying to download chapters 4-8, please make sure you have registered and paid using our online order form. If you are having trouble downloading the free chapters or you are having problems with the shop, please email us (since we discovered the problem - an old webpage we had not deleted - we have not had any queries about this).

I haven't received any link to download the book or audio yet. My paypal receipt is dated XXXX, so I should've received it, right? Do you e-mail me a link, or how does it work??

The download link is generated automatically and sent to the customer, so you should receive those details in the order confirmation email. As long as your order has gone through successfully, you should be able to download the files according to the instructions at http://www.syrianarabic.com/shop/howtodownload.php, which are:

1. From the Syrian Arabic Shop front page, click on *My Account* in the top right corner of the screen.
2. If you are not already logged in, you will need to log in with your username and password.
3. On the My Account Information screen in the *Overview* section, look under the *Previous Orders* heading. From here, click the *view* button associated with the relevant order.
4. At the bottom of this Order Information page, you should find the *Download links* heading, with *Download* buttons for each of the Syrian Arabic files.
5. If you have trouble downloading these files, please contact us <http://www.syrianarabic.com/shop/contact_us.php>.

Can you recommend any other courses I could use?

Our course is really the only one available when it comes to Syrian Arabic. If you are interested in Arabic more broadly, this site about nothing offers a great selection of reviews.

Why do you charge for the material now?

For over 10 years, we provided the full course free of charge. However, the illustrations were not great (many corrupted the pages making them illegible) and there were some illustrations missing completely, notably from the writing practice section. In 2008, we invested a considerable amount of time and money to publish a third edition with upgraded illustrations and the writing practice and other material we had not been able to offer previously. To cover the costs of this new edition, and our ongoing website expenses (which we found were never covered by the few donations), we now charge a modest fee of US$35 for chapters 4-8. This is not bad for 450 page book with 180 minutes of professionally recorded audio material.

Can I buy the book and audio material at a book shop?

The book is now out of print. We are looking into print-on-demand services. Let us know if you have a good suggestion. It is likely the cost of a hard copy (as opposed to a digital copy) will be more than double the current digital price owing to the size of the book.

If I want a hard copy, what should I do?

You can either print the material out yourself and bind it or put it in a folder, or ask one of the many photocopy/binding shops available to do it for you for a small fee. We find that a large spiral bound format is the most comfortable for this size of book.

When will the other modules of your course be available?

Life changes has meant we have chosen to abandon the original, ambitious plan and we will not be able to write any more Integrated Arabic modules. We do, however, encourage other students of Arabic to adopt our method and structure and create their own modules to share.

How long will it take to complete the course?

This is really up to each individual student. You could read the whole book in one day. A normal person who had absolutely no Arabic to start with, could get through the material in about six months, studying everyday. However, if you really want to feel comfortable with Arabic (colloquial or otherwise), you will need two years of full-time, intense study. And then another few years to refine what you have learnt.

I want to study in Syria. Where should I go? Do you run a school?

No, we don't run a school, nor are we able to provide advice on where to study in a school in Syria or anywhere else. Sorry. The best place to start looking is on our page where to study.

What is the difference between Syrian and Egyptian Arabic?

Read our summary online here, or download this file (PDF file)

Why don't you publish the material professionally?

When we wrote the material, no publisher was willing to take on our textbook because it was 'too big for a niche market'. So we decided to self publish and offer the material free to download, which we did for 10 years. During this time, we had several publishers interested, however, they usually asked us to shut down the website and not give any material away for free.

Not in our FAQs? Send us your question.