How to Use

Learning Arabic on Arabic From Day One is simple: follow each day's instructions carefully. The most crucial part of your learning will always be input: reading, listening, watching, and absorbing as much Arabic as you can, consistently.

The first lessons are being written now. This page explains how they work, so you're ready for Day 1.

First, Learn the Arabic Alphabet

Arabic is written in its own alphabet of 28 letters, from right to left. Egyptian Arabic, the Arabic people speak in Egypt and hear across the Arab world in its films, series and songs, uses the same letters. Learn them before Day 1: every lesson is written in this script, and with a few days of practice you'll be sounding out words. A few things are worth knowing:

• Most letters join the letter after them, so a letter's shape changes a little with its place in a word: ب ("b") is بـ at the start of a word, as in بيت ("house"), and ـب at the end, as in كلب ("dog"). Six letters never join the one after them: ا د ذ ر ز و.
• The short vowels a, i and u are usually not written: كتاب ("book", kitaab) is written with just k-t-aa-b. The long ones are: ا (aa, as in "father"), و (oo, as in "food", or w) and ي (ee, as in "see", or y).
• A few sounds are new to English speakers: ح (a breathy "h" from deep in the throat), خ (kh, like the "ch" in Scottish "loch"), ع (a squeeze in the throat), غ (gh, like a French "r"), and the heavy letters ص ض ط ظ, said with the tongue pulled back.
• Egyptians say some letters their own way: ج is the "g" of "go" (جميل, gameel, "beautiful"), ق is usually a catch in the throat, like the break in "uh-oh" (قلب, 'alb, "heart"), and ث and ذ often sound like "t" and "d", or "s" and "z".
• Egyptian Arabic is not the formal Arabic of books and the news: it has words of its own, like إزيك ("how are you?"), مش (mish, "not") and دلوقتي (dilwa'ti, "now"). Its spelling isn't fixed, so the lessons write each line the way Egyptians commonly write it, often with ه at the end of a word where formal Arabic has ة (النهارده, "today"). That's one more reason to learn by listening: hearing a line shows you how people really say it.
• Numbers are often written in Arabic digits, left to right even in right-to-left text: ١٢٣ is 123.

Lessons will also be able to show each line in Latin letters (Romanization, for example ahlan for أهلاً). Use it to check how a line sounds, not to read instead of the Arabic script: the sooner you read the script, the faster you'll go.

Why Input Matters Most

Traditional language learning tries to make you speak before you're ready, forcing you to memorize grammar rules or drill vocabulary out of context.

But when you're pushed to speak too early, you're often just guessing, making mistakes, and creating bad habits. Instead, our method emphasizes constant exposure to natural, understandable Arabic, similar to how children learn their first language.

Required Reading: Input - what it is and why you need it

Daily Lessons: How to Use Them

Each day's lesson comes with clear instructions: simply follow along step by step. If you've comfortably finished a day's content, it's perfectly fine to continue to the next lesson. But don't rush, and take breaks if you're tired. Enjoying the process is crucial; if you don't, burnout is inevitable.

Using a Lesson Page

Every lesson is one short conversation, in a few numbered steps. Press Play all to hear it from start to finish, or the round button next to a line to hear just that line. The line being played is highlighted, so your eyes can follow along. Each speaker has a voice of their own. The Options button next to Play all holds these settings, and the page remembers them for every lesson:

• Play each line once, twice or three times in a row.
• Speed slows the audio down to 0.8× or 0.6× without changing the voice.
• Hide the English leaves the translations blank so you can test yourself. Tap where a line's English was to peek at it.
• Word cards: point at any word of an Arabic line (or tap it) to see what it means.
• Listen only hides all the text, for pure listening.

On a computer, the keyboard works too: R plays or pauses the whole dialogue, 1 to 9 play a line, E hides or shows the English, and the ← → arrows go to the previous or next day.

When you've finished a lesson, press Done, on to the next day: it takes you to the next one and, with a free account, marks the day done, so the course page and the menu show where you left off. If you spot a mistake in a line, press Spotted a mistake? under the dialogue, choose the line and tell us what's wrong.

Saving Your Progress

You don't need an account to learn: every lesson is open to everyone. To keep track of your progress, create a free account with your email address. Every day you finish is then saved to your account, and the course page and the menu show where you left off. Log in on your phone, another computer or a new browser, and you pick up where you left off there too.

Without an account, nothing about your progress is kept. If you marked days done in this browser before progress moved to accounts, they're still here, waiting: create an account or log in on this browser and they go into it. Your account holds only your email address and the lessons you've marked done, and you can delete it any time from its page.

Enta, Enti and Hadretak Are Part of Every Lesson

In Egyptian Arabic, "you" depends on who you're talking to: إنت (enta) to a man, إنتي (enti) to a woman and إنتو (entu) to more than one person, and the words around it change too: "how are you?" is إزيك, said izzayyak to a man and izzayyik to a woman. To show respect, to an older person, a customer, a teacher or a boss, people say حضرتك (hadretak, "your presence") instead, call a man أستاذ (ustaaz) before his first name, and call older people they don't know عمو ('ammo, "uncle") or طنط (tant, "auntie"). Polite Egyptian Arabic is full of set replies, too: صباح الخير ("good morning") is answered with صباح النور ("morning of light"), and you learn them best by hearing them.

You don't need to study the rules. Each lesson's situation says who the speakers are and how they know each other, and across the course you meet every combination: women and men, students and teachers, parents and grandparents, bosses, customers and old friends. Notice how they speak to each other, and the right words will start to feel natural.

Maximizing Your Input

Your goal is simple: get as much input as possible. This doesn't mean just focused study; it means immersing yourself in Arabic as often as you can, even passively. Listen to Egyptian podcasts, YouTube videos, films, series or songs while you walk, exercise, cook, or commute. Much of what you'll hear is the everyday Arabic of Cairo, quicker than the written language and full of words of its own: that's normal, and the more you hear it, the more of it you'll follow.

AJATT famously emphasizes this: passive listening helps your brain get accustomed to Arabic sounds, making the language feel natural over time.

Enjoy the Process and Avoid Burnout

Learning a language should be enjoyable. If you're feeling exhausted, slow down. Remember, this isn't just about learning Arabic; it's about getting used to Arabic. Meeting Arabic every day, even passively, makes it part of your daily life. Eventually, it becomes natural, comfortable, and even part of your identity.

If you consistently engage with the language through input, you'll soon find yourself thinking in Arabic. When you've had enough exposure, the desire to speak will naturally emerge, and you won't need to force it. It'll come as naturally as breathing.

Don't Give Up: We're Always Here

Learning Arabic is a journey, not a race. If life gets in the way and you take a break, that's fine. We'll always be here. Simply come back whenever you're ready, pick up exactly where you left off, and keep going.

Trust the process, keep reading and listening, keep reviewing, and above all, enjoy yourself. Arabic will become a natural part of your life before you know it.