book pronounces one word, expects me to then read arabic on my own after one word is pronounced for me. Did not go over the alphabet. It is not usable for me to learn arabic at all.

This book is a bit disappointing because it doesn't take into account a sad reality -- if you want to teach newcomers Arabic you either have to focus on classical Arabic, which is incredibly difficult and complex for non-native speakers, or focus on one of the spoken Arabic dialects, which fortunately are about as accessible as any other language having few similarities to English or a European language. Unfortunately, the sample phrases are written in classical Arabic (still the standard practice in Middle Eastern countries for written documents) while the transliteration intended to make them accessible to those who cannot read the Arabic script reproduces the written classical Arabic in Latin script , rendering them virtually unusable for anyone trying to learn!