In February 2022, Dr. Bulbul began posting very short videos in simple Arabic to TikTok and YouTube. Each video has a page on this site with a transcription and translation. Happy learning! Clip 0007: أتَناوَل الإفطار ‘I’m eating breakfast’ Clip 0006: عندي سبع تفّاحات ‘I have seven apples’ Clip 0005: كلب أحمر، قطة… حمراء Clip …
Category: intermediate
The intermediate category is for learners with a vocabulary of a few hundred words and who can read whole sentences in Arabic script.
Some basic expressions for Ramadan
In this article we’ll be looking some basic words and expressions concerning Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Happy Ramadan! There are a couple of common expressions to wish someone a happy Ramadan, the first of which is this: رَمَضان كرِيم. ramaḍan kariim. literally: ‘Ramadan is nobel/generous.’ The usual reply to this expression is: اللهُ …
Supplementary Readings for Arabic 1-4
Occasionally an Arabic class will go more quickly through the course material and planned. This page provides a list of supplemental readings and materials that can be used. Arabic 1 An untitled story in which two children take a walk and see a chick. here here here here
Counting things 1-10
If you have learned the numbers in Arabic and also a few plural nouns, you might be at the point that you would like to start using numbers in combination with nouns, as in “one car”, “two apples”, and “three houses”. This can be a bit tricky in Arabic. Here I will explain how to …
The principal moods of the Arabic verb: Indicative, subjunctive, jussive, and imperative
In this article we will take a short look at the main moods of the Standard Arabic verb: indicative, subjunctive, jussive, and imperative. We won’t go into excessive detail, just the contexts that beginning and intermediate learners of Arabic are likely to encounter. This is also the reason we won’t discuss the short and long …
Duolingo Arabic is coming: What should we expect?
Update! The Duolingo Arabic course was released out of beta in early July 2019. If you would like to use this course, check out Dr. Bulbul’s Guide to Duolingo Arabic. Duolingo is a wildly popular website and app for learning foreign foreign languages. English-speakers are currently able to learn over 25 languages on the platform, …
“Seven Brothers” song: Learn ordinal numbers and professions
In this post we will look at a children’s song خالي عنده سبع أولاد (pronounced khaalii ʕind-uh sabʕ ’awlaad in Standard Arabic) ‘My Uncle Has Seven Sons’, sung to the tune of ‘Skip To My Lou’. This song will help you learn the first seven ordinal numbers (i.e., ‘first’, ‘second’, … ‘seventh’), as well as …
Learn 10 professions with a Zakaria children’s video
On the “Learn with Zakaria – تَعَلَّمْ مَعَ زَكَرِيّا” channel on YouTube there are quite a few short instructional videos for children that can teach you some basic vocabulary. In this post I’ll talk a bit about the video about professions. If you’re a beginner, you’ll probably just want to do the first part of …
Online Arabic dictionaries
I am often asked what Arabic dictionaries I can recommend. In this article I will discuss four Arabic–English and/or English–Arabic online dictionaries, highlighting their advantages and drawbacks. Oxford Dictionaries Premium This is by far my fav♥rite online bilingual dictionary for Arabic and English. It is a paid subscription, but it only costs about $20 per …
Al-Manhal’s children’s book, set 1, book 3: يَحْيا الْعَدْل
The third book in Al-Manhal’s set of stories for children learning Arabic is called يحيا العدل yaḥyaa l-ʕadl ‘long live fairness!’. This is a fairly simple book. Since the main characters in it are a pair of cats, you will encounter a number of dual forms, such as القطّتان ’al-qiṭṭataan ‘the two cats’, which is …