Want to learn Arabic?
Arabic is a large language with 300 million speakers worldwide, mostly across the Middle East and in North Africa. It’s an ancient semitic language and originated several thousand years ago. As o ne of the six official language, it’s internationally recognised for its prominence and is one of the most useful languages. More English words are partly derived from Arabic than you’d suspect, sugar and guitar, for example.
Arabic has many different dialects which span many different areas, so it’s important that you pick one. For example, the formal dialect used by journalist and the media is Modern Standard Arabic, best suited to reading Arabic text. But other dialects like Levantine, Iraqi and Egytian Arabic have distinct differences and are used by millions.
Best way to learn Arabic easily
There is no really easy way to learn a language like Arabic if you’ve no experience with it or other Semitic languages like Hebrew – it’s unique and incredibly advanced in both speech and writing. But we can still target areas in order to accelerate our experience, and using the best language app for learning Arabic will be a great help.
It can be wise to focus on a specific are of learning. When learning Arabic, the best course of action is to tackle its more difficult aspects of pronounciation first before moving onto grammar and then finally onto writing. Being able to speak, listen and read is always more important than being able to write but people often find they can’t jump the first hurdle with Arabic – pronouncing basic words and phrases. Of course, you will need to learn vocab as you go too, but since pronunciation is hardest for learners, it’s wise to begin tackling the basics of Arabic sounds first.
Learning how to pronounce words in Arabic is the key to success with the language and there’s one app which is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to this and that’s Bilingua. It provides a platform where learners are matches up with partners who are native speakers of their target languages, simulating the most organic form of learning in the form of a downloadable app with many extra features.
Its uniqueness in pairing learners together with native speakers for conversation exchange makes it powerful for learning languages like Arabic where pronunciation is paramount, it provides the best app to learn Arabic easily through natural exchanges with actual speakers.
Bilingua works on all platforms too and it’s free!
Interacting with other humans will always be far better than interacting with technology alone, which is the case with the other useful apps listed below. They are great for providing the raw tools but without the ability to converse naturally with natives, they aren’t optimised for the easiest way to learn Arabic.
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Apps for learning Arabic
Android Only – Arabic Alphabet – TenguLogi
This Android only app is free but has in app prchases. It works offline but connections are recommended to make the use of its features. It uses an easily navigable menu system and focuses on teaching the Arabic alphabet specifically. Each lesson uses a flashcard with the letter and pronunciation and it’s placement in several sentences.
Android Only – Arabic Language Guide
Another Android Only App, this basic free platform teaches pronunciation, alphabet, vocab, and grammar for Modern Standard Arabic, and also teaches basic conversational skills.
Multi- platform – 50 Languages
This popular app runs on Android and iOS and works offline as a language app officially accredited by A1 and A2 European frameworks. It’s free with in-app purchases and provides audio files pronunciation as well as comprehensive vocab in many types of fields from music to sports and emotions.
iOS Only – Learn Arabic Easy
This iOS app teaches basic vocab for the Modern Standard Arabic dialect and includes grammar and cultural information. It comes with step-by-step explanations and plenty of different exercises on offer. This Arabic learning app costs $3 and is fully featured for the price.
iOS Only – Oxford Arabic Dictionary
The Oxford Arabic Dictionary is powerful and fully featured by Oxford products are known for being pricey and this weighs in at $18. It contains 16,000 words and many phrases along with detailed translations, learning exercises and a powerful search feature.
iOS Only – Mawris Al-Qareeb Dictionary
This is a powerful app that cost $20 and only runs on iOS. It has both Arabic- English and English-Arabic dictionaries and contains 33,000 words with vast catalogues of appendices and extra phrases. It’s well developed and solid in most ways – very utilitarian in design and fully featured.
Next steps: Easy apps for learning the Arabic alphabet
Once you’re equipped with the apps and partnered up with a native Arabic speaker on Bilingua, you can get started writing Arabic characters and for that, you’ll need a dedicated alphabet. Many of the above apps include these and you can trace your characters to practice your writing skills, along with exercises and suggestions for training your technique.
By this stage, if your pronunciation skills are on point, then you’ll notice that forming words and phrases coherently is easier as you can piece together sounds to words. Arabic contains off sounds for both vowels and consonants and learning the alphabet will be easier when your understanding of these sounds is well trained.
Still want to learn Arabic online?
Arabic is tremendously useful and rewarding but for some, it’s offputting and this is especially true if you can’t regularly speak to Arabic speakers. For those who can’t easily have conversations in Arabic to practice, Bilingua provides the answers and for any language learner, it allows you to practice your skills organically at times to suit you. It places natural learning techniques into your hands – quite literally!
