Arabic learning resources

Arabic learning resources

Arabic language learning links

Here are some links to websites with free information on Arabic, and also media sources with free content that can help you practice Arabic. Please feel free to email me with other useful links (as long as they are free and contain a decent amount of content, not just one page with a few words/phrases):

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 links
Free 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 alphabet
Learning the Arabic script, from Stanford
Arabic alphabet tutorial

Standard Arabic

Babel online beginner Arabic course
Madinah 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 mp3s

Lebanese Arabic

ABC Lebanese Arabic

Jordanian Arabic

LangMedia: Arabic in Jordan - lots of videos (with transcripts and translations) arranged by theme

Moroccan Arabic

Speak Moroccan - some basic grammar and a bunch of vocabulary
Revised 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-Arabic
Arabic 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.

source: [1]

What is the Arabic Alphabet?

What is the Arabic Alphabet?

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The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, reading from right to left.
Shown below are the basic forms of the letters. 

• Arabic doesn't have a case distinction. There are no upper case or lower case letters .
  
  
• When combined into words, most letters connect with one another, using slight modifications to the basic letter forms (see more on this below).
  
  
• The letters are all consonants, but three of them also represent long vowels.
  
  
• In addition to the letters shown above, there are three short vowels, which are added as small marks above or below the consonants. There are also other marks, signifying things like "silent vowel", "doubling of the consonant", etc.
  

How are Arabic letters written?

The letters in the table above, are all shown in their isolated form. This is the basic, original form of the letters.

• To write a word, we need to make slight modifications to the isolated forms of the letters, to enable them to join with their "neighbours".

For example, when kaaf begins a word, we call it the "initial" form, and it looks like this:

When kaaf comes anywhere between the first and the last letter of the word, we call it the "middle" form, and it looks like this:

When kaaf is the last letter of the word, we call it the "end" form, and it looks like this:

Let's now try and build a simple word - the verb kataba. This word means "to write", and consists of the letters kaaf, taa' and baa'.

To write the word kataba, we will again need to use the initial form of kaaf, but this time we will add a short "a"-vowel - looking like a short stroke - above the kaaf:

What we have written so far, reads ka.

We are now going to add the second letter, called taa'. The isolated form of taa' is shown in the alphabet table above. It is in the first row, the third letter from the right.

We will need the middle form of taa' in order to connect it to kaaf. Below you can see the middle form of taa', before we connect it to kaaf:

After connecting taa' to kaaf, we add a short "a"-vowel above the taa':

What we have written so far, reads kata.

We will now add the third letter, called baa'. The isolated form of baa' is in the alphabet table above. It is in the first row, the second letter from the right.

Below we can see the end form of baa', before we connect it to taa':

After connecting baa' to taa', we add yet another short "a"-vowel, this time above the baa'.

The word is now complete, and reads kataba.

• Arabic is usually written unvocalized, meaning that the text is written without the short vowels. Short vowels are mostly added in poetry and texts for Arabic learners (including children's books).
  
  
• The most prominent example of a vocalized (complete with short vowels) text is the Quran.
  
  
• Reading unvocalized text is possible because of the strict grammatical structure of the language. A person with knowledge of Arabic grammar knows which vowels should be where, when reading unvocalized Arabic text.

Source: [1]