For someone who has been studying Arabic for several years now, I find this book extremely useful. It presents indispensable everyday words that I don't think I would have learned as quickly without this book. And I love having an excuse to pore through a book with lots of pictures....they offer a unique visual tool that helps me remember the words even better. The fact that the vowels are absent is a good thing for the intermediate learner because you can test yourself by voweling them and check your work in the Hans Wehr. One caution for the beginning Arabic speaker...if you don't have a good grasp of Arabic grammar and can't recognize when the authors are using the Arabic term as an imperative, present tense, noun, adjective, etc. and don't understand how to change from their tense to the tense you want for speaking or writing, you'll probably be saying a lot of things wrong. But you'll encounter this problem with any Arabic text.