العربية (Arabic)
Arabic is spoken by over 400 million people across 25 countries, stretching from Morocco to the Gulf. It's one of the six official UN languages and the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide.
Why learn Arabic?
Arabic opens doors to the Middle East and North Africa, a region of immense strategic, economic, and cultural importance. It's the language of Islamic scholarship, rich literary traditions, and rapidly growing markets.
What makes Arabic distinctive?
- Right-to-left script — Connected cursive writing
- Root system — Words built from 3-letter roots
- Diglossia — Formal (MSA) vs spoken dialects
- Emphatic consonants — Sounds not found in European languages
- Complex morphology — Extensive verb patterns
- No "is/are" — Present tense "to be" is often omitted
MSA vs Dialects
| Variety | Use |
|---|---|
| Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) | Media, literature, formal speech |
| Egyptian | Egypt, most widely understood dialect |
| Levantine | Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine |
| Gulf | Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc. |
| Maghrebi | Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia |
This guide focuses on MSA with notes on common dialects.
This guide
- The Arabic script — Letters and writing
- Your first words — Essential vocabulary
- Grammar basics — Sentence structure
- Verbs — The root-and-pattern system
- Numbers — Counting in Arabic
- Everyday conversations — Practical phrases
- Culture and context — Understanding Arab societies
- Next steps — Resources for continued learning