Arabic learning resources
Arabic language learning links
| General links on Arabic | Online dictionaries |
| The Arabic alphabet | Arabic media online |
| Standard Arabic | Television news |
| Egyptian Arabic | Newspapers |
| Levantine Arabic | Magazines |
| Syrian Arabic | Music |
| Lebanese Arabic | Movies |
| Jordanian Arabic | Entertainment television and video |
| Moroccan Arabic | Radio, podcasts and other audio |
| Tunisian Arabic | Books |
| Mauritanian Arabic |
General
WordReference Arabic Resources page - includes many useful linksFree FSI courses - for standard Arabic, Levantine and Saudi dialects, and comparative studies of different dialects
NMELRC Arabic Learner's Handbook (PDF, 141 KB) - general information and tips on the learning process
V-Arabic - Virtual Arabic blog with digitized language realia resources for Arabic learners & teachers
Arabic Corpus - a searchable Arabic corpus; great for seeing the contexts in which words are commonly used
Yamli - type and do searches in transliterated Arabic, and the site will "translate" back into Arabic script
MEMRI TV - news video clips with English translations
The Arabic Student blog - contains Arabic videos with transcripts and vocabulary
Learn Arabic Language website - a great resource with lots of Arabic textbooks and learning materials for download
GLOSS learning materials - do a search for Arabic, and you'll find lots of lessons based on authentic materials, on different topics, with several activities per lesson.
Weekly training events - again, search for Arabic, and you'll find more lessons with authentic media and activities, on a variety of topics.
CultureTalk - features videos by native Arabic speakers from the Levant, Egypt, North Africa, Western Sahara, and Yemen. Speakers discuss a variety of cultural topics, mostly in Arabic, and transcripts and translations are included.
Mo3jam - a user-generated dictionary of colloquial Arabic slang, similar to Urban Dictionary but much more limited.
Arabic Online from Western Michigan University - a set of instructional units with authentic texts and audio/video excerpts with self-graded comprehension questions. There are three units: Advanced Standard Arabic I, Advanced Standard Arabic II, and Advanced Egyptian Arabic I.
Arabic Variant Identification Aid - an informative website focusing on the urban Arabic dialects spoken in the United Arab Emirates, Jidda (Hijaz, Saudi Arabia), Jerusalem (Palestinian Arabic), Baghdad (Iraq), Kuwait, Qatar and Sanca (Yemen)
Foreigncy - Arabic news articles with vocabulary
The Arabic alphabet
Online Arabic reading course - teaches the alphabetLearning the Arabic script, from Stanford
Arabic alphabet tutorial
Standard Arabic
Babel online beginner Arabic courseMadinah online course focusing on Arabic grammar
ArabicOnline.eu - has an online beginner course in Arabic
Arabic grammar reference
A Hundred and One Grammar Rules by Mohammed Jiyad - a short reference grammar for beginning and intermediate learners
Arabic grammar resources - a categorized database of grammar information
Read Arabic! - reading practice materials in standard Arabic, on novice and intermediate levels. The texts are accompanied by additional materials such as audio, notes, translation, and a glossary.
Egyptian Arabic
DLI course in Egyptian Arabic - includes both PDF lessons and audio.BYU Arabic course materials - Online vocabulary, exercises, and videos for both Egyptian and standard Arabic (beginner level).
CultureTalk Egypt - A great collection of videos, including transcripts and translations, on a variety of cultural topics.
An Arabist's Guide to Egyptian Colloquial by Daniel Pipes (PDF, 8 MB) - Written for Arabic students with a background in standard Arabic, this is a good introduction to the Egyptian dialect.
Egyptian Arabic Dialect Course - a series of 15 lessons using songs to teach vocabulary and grammar.
Lisaan Masry - has a dictionary and a grammar introduction.
TalkEgypt - a collection of Arabic movies, TV, and music videos that have subtitles.
An Introduction to Egyptian Arabic by Ernest T. Abdel-Massih
A Comprehensive Study of Egyptian Arabic, Vol. 1: Conversations, Cultural Texts, and Sociolinguistic Notes by Ernest T. Abdel-Massih
A Comprehensive Study of Egyptian Arabic, Vol. 2: Proverbs and Metaphoric Expressions by Ernest T. Abdel-Massih
A Comprehensive Study of Egyptian Arabic, Vol. 3: A Reference Grammar of Egyptian Arabic by Ernest T. Abdel-Massih
A Comprehensive Study of Egyptian Arabic, Vol. 4: Arabic-English and English-Arabic Lexicon by Ernest T. Abdel-Massih
Egyptian Arabic Primer by W.A. Betts, available to browse or as a free PDF download from Google Books. Note that it was published in 1902, so some of the content (vocabulary like "wabuur/babuur" for train; "Hakiim" for doctor; "mara" for woman; and so on) is outdated, but it's interesting as a historical document.
An Arabic-English Vocabulary of the Colloquial Arabic of Egypt by Socrates Spiro, from Google Books. This book is old too (pub. 1895), but is nonetheless also interesting as a historical document.
Levantine Arabic
CultureTalk Arab Levant - video clips of interviews and discussions with Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, and Jordanians. Most of the clips are in colloquial Arabic, some are in English. Translations are given for all non-English video clips.Colloquial Levantine audio and video collection - audio, video, and sample syllabi for learning everyday Arabic as spoken by Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians.
Syrian Arabic
Syrian Arabic textbook - used to be free; now costs $45 for the PDF and mp3sJordanian Arabic
LangMedia: Arabic in Jordan - lots of videos (with transcripts and translations) arranged by themeMoroccan Arabic
Speak Moroccan - some basic grammar and a bunch of vocabularyRevised Peace Corps Moroccan Arabic book, available for download as a PDF file
Tunisian Arabic
Peace Corps Tunisian Arabic book (PDF, 10.9 MB)Tunisian Arabic course (PDF, 3.55 MB)
Mauritanian Arabic
Mauritanian Arabic: Culture and Communication (PDF, 5.53 MB)Mauritanian Arabic: Grammar (PDF, 1.4 MB)
Mauritanian Arabic: Literacy (PDF, 1.56 MB)
Gulf Arabic
Gulf Arabic.com (free registration required)Online dictionaries
Al Maany - Arabic-English, English-ArabicArabic Almanac - Arabic-English; enables you to search the Hans Wehr dictionary
Aratools - Arabic-English
WordReference - English-Arabic
Ectaco - English-Arabic
Fuzzy Arabic Dictionary - an Arabic-English dictionary allowing you to look up words without knowing their exact Arabic spelling
Arabic media online
Aswaat Arabiyya - an excellent archive of videos, sorted by level of difficulty. You can even slow down the video speed.Arabic phone conversations - an excellent archive of phone conversations in Egyptian, Levantine, and Iraqi Arabic. You can sort by dialect, topic, and difficulty level.
Arabic Language and Iraqi Dialect Through Dialogue - a nice collection of dialogues, 48 in standard Arabic (beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels), and 55 in Iraqi Arabic.
Arabic Webcasts - the news in simplified Arabic, including accompanying exercises. The site hasn't been updated in a long time, but there's still a good archive of material.
BBC Arabic - includes streaming video and radio news
Television news
- Al Jazeera (website | online stream | YouTube channel)- Al Arabiya (website | online stream - not available in the US | YouTube channel)
- France24 - Click on the banner reading البث المباشر to watch their live stream.
- wwiTV - streaming TV channels from many different countries.
- HD44 - a great collection of streaming Arabic TV channels and other video, including news and entertainment
Newspapers
- Sahafa Online| Egypt | Lebanon |
| - Al Ahram | - An Nahar |
| - Al Akhbar | |
| - Al Gomhuria | Iraq |
| - Al Masry Al Youm | - Az Zaman |
| - Al Mesryoon | |
| - Al Shorouk | Saudi Arabia |
| - Al Wafd | - Al Watan |
| - Nahdet Misr | |
| United Arab Emirates | |
| Jordan | - Al Bayan |
| - Al Rai | - Al Ittihad |
| - Ad Dustour | - Dar Al Khaleej |
| Palestine | |
| - Al Quds | |
Magazines
Egypt- Akher Sa'a
- Akhbar El Nogoom (entertainment news)
- Sayidaty (women's magazine)
Music
- The Arabic Music.com- Panet.co.il
- Farfesh
- Mazakony forum
- Eftekes forum (free registration required)
- Tarab.com - streaming Arabic music (RealPlayer required)
- La7oon lyrics (registration required) - Arabic lyrics site
- Arabic Song Lyrics & Translation - translations and lyrics to more than 600 Arabic songs.
- Arabic Lyrics Translation forum - features a large archive of song translations, and you can request (or post your own) translations of Arabic songs.
- Shira.net Song Translations - a bellydance website featuring lyrics in both transliterated and translated form.
- OrientalDancer.net Song Lyrics - more translated/transliterated lyrics from another bellydance site.
- Asra Bellydance song translations
Movies
- Al Arab - a great archive of streaming movies and TV shows- Arab Cima - another archive of streaming movies and TV shows, including dubbed American movies. In general, fantasy and historical dramas are dubbed into standard Arabic, and contemporary-set comedies and dramas are dubbed into either Levantine or Egyptian Arabic. There are also some dubbed TV shows.
- Foraten.net
- Sotwesoora.tv
- Al Mumiyaa' (The Mummy/The Night of Counting the Years) - a famous 1969 film with dialogue entirely in fuSHa. Subtitled version here.
- YouTube user omar1980TV - many full movies, mostly old ones, starring such actors as Soad Hosni, Ismail Yassin, Farid al Atrache, Fatin Hamama, Abdel Halim Hafez, and others.
- YouTube user Hind0Rostom - a large collection of full movies starring Hind Rostom.
- Rotana Cinema - Arabic movies online
Entertainment television & video
- MBC - streaming video of full episodes of many shows. Not available in the US.- Sonara - Scroll down to choose from TV series, movies, and TV programs
- Ikbis - originally designed as an Arabic version of YouTube; you can now browse their channels to watch cooking shows, animation, and other videos.
- MTV Lebanon
- Shankaboot - a Lebanese web series
Radio, podcasts, & other audio
- Archive of episodes from ساعة لقلبك - a famous Egyptian comedy radio show from the '50s and '60s.- France24 - Monte Carlo Doualiya - Click on the link at the bottom reading البث المباشر to listen to their radio stream.
- BBC Xtra podcast - the BBC's flagship Arabic podcast, covering social and human interest issues. Updated daily with approximately half hour long podcasts.
- Al-Kitaab Podcasts
- ArabicPod - over 100 beginner-level Arabic podcasts available for free (with registration); however, for access to higher-level podcasts, a subscription is required.
Books
- Arabic e-books in PDF format (password for .rar files is tipsclub)- Adab (Arabic poetry)
- Rashf - Arabic e-book database (must log in via Twitter or Facebook for download)
- 4shared - If you're looking for a book (or, for that matter, a song), do a search in Arabic on this site.
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