Arabic Learning Resources - courses, books, apps, blogs

As you are learning Arabic, you will probably find yourself looking for resources that can accelerate your progress. To help you with this, I have put together a list of some resources that I have found helpful.

I am only including here resources that I have either personally used for learning Arabic, or am personally familiar with. There may be other great resources out there, but unless I have used it or am very familiar with it, I will not recommend it to you.

Some of the resources below are free, and others are for purchase. I have marked a number of them with a * symbol after the name, indicating that these are products that, should you purchase them, will result in a small commission being paid to this blog. This will come at no extra charge to you, and helps me to cover the costs of running the blog and making as much useful information about learning Arabic available to you as I am able to write about. Only purchase products listed below if you think they will actually be of help to you.

Vocabulary Tools for Learning Arabic

Anki – Friendly, intelligent flashcards. Allows you to create Arabic flashcards easily (or import other user-made sets), and uses spaced repetition to quiz you.

Arabic Lessons and Courses

OpenLanguage Arabic Anywhere courses. Excellent content for learning educated spoken Arabic.

Qasid Arabic Institute Online. Excellent courses for Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic (separate tracks).

Arab Academy. A wide range of levels. Good course materials, and courses include online tutoring sessions via Skype. I have used this successfully with adults and my own teenage children.

Become an Arabic Calligraphy Artist from Scratch * An 8-week comprehensive and step-by-step course to learn the Naskh, Thuluth, and Diwani scripts from absolute scratch. This is an absolutely great course that I loved going through, by one of the world’s best Arabic calligraphy teachers.

Listening Materials for Learning Arabic

Talk in Arabic*. One of the best sources I have found and used for very high quality listening materials of all different Arabic dialects. My first stop for authentic Arabic listening. Also has a great blog.

Arab Voices 1 and 2*. Authentic recordings of Arabic natives speakers talking in different dialects about a wide variety of topics. Comes with exercises, voweled transcripts, vocabulary, cultural insights, etc. All audio is downloadable.

NCLRC Arabic Webcasts. Free downloads of Arabic newscasts, with well-designed exercises and activities to accompany. Developed by the National Capital Language Resource Center at George Washington University.

Arabic Anywhere – Soundcloud. Free recordings of the audio segments from the Arabic Anywhere series of courses (see OpenLanguage link above in Courses section).

Books (Textbooks, Reference, Guides, etc.)

Al-Kitaab fii Tacallum al-cArabiyya – A Textbook for Beginning Arabic*. The most used textbook for Arabic in universities worldwide. Good solid Arabic learning materials, with a wide range of resources available.

Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds*. One of the most widely used books to introduce the Arabic alphabet and pronunciation to new learners. Comes with exercises.

Al-Murshid: A Guide to Modern Standard Arabic Grammar for the Intermediate Level*. I have found this to be, for me, the most useful set of grammar lessons with exercises in Modern Standard Arabic. Comes with great PowerPoint files on CD.

Modern Standard Arabic Grammar: A Concise Guide*. This is my quick reference book on Arabic grammar. I find the layout and structure of the book to be concise and helpful.

Hans Wehr Arabic English Dictionary*. The indispensable tool of all series learners of Modern Standard Arabic! I’ve been trying to find something better over 25 years of Arabic learning, and haven’t been able to yet!

Arabic Verbs and Essentials of Grammar*. I use this more for its treatment of verbs than for its grammar. This is for Modern Standard Arabic. Gives full conjugations of all of the different forms of verbs. Not for the faint-hearted. Good reference tool.

Kallimni Arabi: an Intermediate Course in Spoken Egyptian Arabic*. I have used this book with my teenage children, and it is one of the best Egyptian Arabic resources that I have come across. Has a good focus on listening and speaking. Comes with a CD containing audio files.

Blogs about Learning Arabic

TalkInArabic.com – A good blend of useful resources for learning Arabic and general posts about the process of learning the language.

learn_arabic on Reddit – Interesting discussions about learning Arabic. You’ll find some really helpful people hanging out here, answering questions. Ask your questions, or help give answers.

Fluent in 3 Months – Benny Lewis is an Irish polyglot who teaches about the process of learning languages. His blog posts are great, and Arabic is one of the languages he talks about. I first came across him during his epic interview with Tim Ferriss (12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time — The Only Post You’ll Ever Need)

Videos

A useful series of 20 lessons for learning the Arabic Alphabet:

“Learn Arabic Naturally – idiomatic expressions” – Moataz: