Course description

This course takes you from your very first Arabic letter to reading fully vowelled Arabic and holding simple, polite conversations about yourself, food, shopping, travel and everyday life. It's written for adults who are starting Arabic from scratch, for travel, for work, for family or simply because they'd like to read the script.

Every lesson is written in plain English and explains each grammar word the first time it appears. The alphabet is taught fully, letter by letter, with every letter in its four forms, and every Arabic word has a simple transliteration beside it, so you can read and say everything without audio while you learn to read. The course teaches Modern Standard Arabic, the shared written form used across the Arabic-speaking world, with a plain note on how spoken dialects differ. You'll practise out loud from the start, with short dialogues, sentences to read aloud and a practical task in every lesson.

There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, and each section ends with a short quiz. You follow Daphne, an engineer from West Yorkshire, as she learns Arabic and practises every Saturday with a language exchange partner in Amman. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, example answers, extra practice with answers, a word list and flashcards, plus a printable alphabet chart, a letter forms chart, handwriting sheets, phrase cards, grammar sheets, a numbers sheet, verb tables, dialogue scripts and a printable phrase sheet where they help.

What you'll learn

• The alphabet, part one: how Arabic is written from right to left, the four forms of a letter, the letters that don't join forwards, and your first fourteen letters and words.
• The alphabet, part two: the rest of the 28 letters, including the heavy letters, the short vowels and other marks, taa' marbuuTa, hamza, and the definite article with sun and moon letters.
• Greetings and introductions: hello and goodbye at any time of day, please, thank you and sorry, introducing yourself, countries and nationalities, and writing your name in Arabic.
• Numbers, prices, dates and time: Arabic-Indic digits and the digits you know, numbers to a thousand and beyond, prices, the time, and days, months and dates.
• Building sentences: pronouns, sentences with no word for is, masculine and feminine, describing words, possessive endings, two nouns together, and saying what isn't.
• Verbs in the present and past: how words grow from three-letter roots, the present and past tenses, saying don't and didn't, and the future with sa-.
• Questions, family and daily life: question words, your daily routine, family, describing people and places with colours, and hobbies.
• Food and drink: food and drink words, ordering at a café and a restaurant, explaining a food allergy clearly, and buying at a market.
• Shopping, travel and directions: shops, sizes and colours, paying and agreeing a price, asking the way, trains, buses and taxis, hotels, the chemist and asking for help.
• Review and final projects: making plans, a phrase review with general culture notes, a self-introduction and an account of a day out written in Arabic script, and how to keep learning.

Who it's for

Adult beginners: complete beginners, and anyone who knows a few words and wants a structured start. It suits travellers, people with Arabic-speaking colleagues, friends or family, and anyone who'd like to learn a new language and a beautiful new script, from مَرْحَبًا (marHaban, hello) onwards.

What this course is, and isn't

This is a text-based course with no audio or video: pronunciation is taught with a simple transliteration and plain descriptions. It teaches Modern Standard Arabic, not a particular dialect. It's a language course only, with no religious or political content. It doesn't lead to a qualification, and it doesn't recommend any apps, books or brands. The story and characters are fictional.

What will I learn?

• Read and write all 28 Arabic letters in their four forms, right to left, with the short vowels and other marks
• Read fully vowelled Arabic aloud, using a simple transliteration as a guide, including sun and moon letters
• Greet people, use polite phrases for a man or a woman, and introduce yourself
• Use numbers in Arabic-Indic and Western digits for prices, the time, days and dates
• Build simple sentences with pronouns, the definite article, masculine and feminine, and possessive endings
• Talk about the present, the past and your plans with everyday verbs, and ask questions
• Describe your daily routine, family, hobbies, people and places
• Order at a café, a restaurant and a market, and explain a food allergy clearly
• Shop, ask the way, use trains, buses and taxis, check in and ask for help
• Write a self-introduction and an account of a day out in Arabic script

Frequently asked questions