Come on, you want to learn about the ventive, bound forms of nouns vs. absolute and construct forms, the fucked up writing system (think in Sumerian, but pronounce it in Akkadian) and of course all the fun you can count on when studying any Semitic language in verbs (III-weak verbs, hollow verbs, I-aleph, I-nun and I-w verbs and all sorts of other fun fun fun!).

I realized at about Lesson 12 in the Akkadian book that it is by far the hardest Semitic language to learn. You basically have to know a decent amount of Sumerian to read and write it, you need to memorize about 150-300 of the more common signs (there are up to around 600, but half of those are just names of particular cities, etc.), and you have a more complex grammar than in Hebrew or Arabic (or Aramaic, but that goes without saying). I had to STOP at Lesson 12, fully learn the writing system (Neo-Assyrian forms; the Old Babylonian lapidary forms are the sort of thing that can be learned incrementally) then go back. Then, around Lesson 20, I had to go back and brush up on my Sumerian (and those Old Babylonian lapidary forms came in handy). Once I finish the whole textbook (38 lessons) I will be able to read most anything in Sumerian or Akkadian, which, combined with Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic (including Syriac), Egyptian (including Coptic) and classical languages will mean I've got the ancient world pretty well covered.

The question is, just what do I research once I'm done?