This Book Teaches the Arabic People Speak, Not the Arabic on the News

The mismatch nobody warns beginners about

Plenty of people study Arabic for a year, arrive somewhere it is spoken, and discover that almost nothing they learned is what anyone is saying. The formal Arabic of textbooks and broadcasts is real and useful, but it is not the language of the street, the kitchen or the group chat.

Learn Arabic For Your Habibi teaches the spoken language directly.

Spoken Levantine, and it says so plainly

The book covers everyday spoken Levantine Arabic — heard across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, in a large share of Arabic music and television, and throughout Dubai's Arab community.

That is a narrow, honest claim, and it is the reason the book is only forty pages and still complete. It is not trying to cover every dialect. It is trying to make you conversational in one.

• How people actually greet each other, with the replies that come back.
• How a real introduction goes, not the textbook version.
• The words that make speech sound like speech, rather than translation.

Easy by construction

Clear transliteration throughout, so no script is needed to begin. A pronunciation guide at the front. No grammar drills anywhere. An (m) and (f) marking on every line so you always know your own version. Nineteen sections, forty pages, complete beginners welcome.

Choose the variety first

If you are still deciding which Arabic to learn at all, we wrote an honest guide to that in which Arabic should you learn. If Levantine is your answer — and for anyone learning for a partner, a family or life in Dubai it usually is — this book is the shortest route into it.

Learn Arabic For Your Habibi, by Daria Okhrimenko. A4 paperback, AED 169, free delivery anywhere in the UAE within two to four days.