The best way to learn Arabic is one grammar book worked front to back with a tutor, plus daily spaced repetition. Our top pick is A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language by Haywood and Nahmad, paired with a weekday tutor and Anki. It carried one adult beginner from the alphabet to a university Arabic certificate.
This page lists what was actually used, in the order it was used, by someone who started from nothing as an adult, plus the popular options we tell people to skip.
How we chose
Every resource on this page had to pass three tests, and anything that failed one of them was left off or named as a skip.
- Does it explain the rule, or only show it? A book that sprinkles grammar through dialogues without explaining any of it works in a classroom and fails a self-studier.
- Does it make you produce Arabic? Recognizing a word on a screen is not the same skill as saying it or writing it. Anything that only tests recognition is a warm-up.
- Was it still in use after month three? Almost every app passes week one. The interesting question is what survives a year of daily study.
Prices and subscription plans change constantly, so check before you buy anything named here.
What actually worked, stage by stage
Here is the whole route, in the order it happened, with an honest verdict on each stage. This is one learner's path rather than a survey of the market.
| Stage | What was used | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabet and pronunciation | Al-Qaidah An-Noraniah, plus a letter-writing workbook | Kept. It fixed pronunciation before a single vocabulary word was learned. |
| Reading fluency | A color-coded tajweed Quran, one timed page a day | Kept. The first page took 20 minutes. Later it took 2. |
| Grammar | A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language, every exercise, with the answer key | Kept. The best single purchase on this list, and still the book I open when a rule slips. |
| Vocabulary | Anki, daily, at every stage | Kept. The only tool used continuously from the first letter to today. |
| Speaking and listening | Al Arabiyyah Bayna Yadayk, four units, with a tutor | Kept, with one condition. Excellent book, unusable alone without the answer key. |
| Structure and a credential | A university Arabic certificate, four courses built on the Al-Kitaab series | Skipped in hindsight. Not one new grammar point came out of it. |
| Guidance throughout | A tutor over Skype, every weekday for over a year | Kept. Nothing else moved as fast. |
The full account of that route, including what went wrong in it, is in how I learned Arabic as an adult.
Start with the alphabet, and give it two weeks
Learn to read the 28 letters before you learn a single phrase, and learn them from a book or course that includes audio so you hear each sound made correctly. Arabic has sounds English does not, and a mispronounced letter learned in week one is still there in year three.
The reason this stage matters more in Arabic than in French or Spanish is that Arabic normally leaves out the short vowels. The three letters of كتب can be read as kataba (he wrote) or kutub (books), and only context and grammar tell you which. Beginner texts print the vowels; real ones do not. The sooner you can read a word without them, the sooner everything else opens up.
Do not lean on transliteration past the first two weeks. Writing Arabic in English letters feels like progress and is a crutch that slows everything after it. Our list of Arabic alphabet books and courses covers the books with audio, the free video lessons, and the printable writing worksheets.
One grammar book, worked front to back
Pick one grammar book and finish it, doing every exercise, rather than sampling four. Our pick is A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language by Haywood and Nahmad: it is dense, it explains rules properly instead of hinting at them, and every chapter ends in exercises with a separately sold answer key so a self-studier can mark their own work.
The method that made it work was unglamorous. Preview the chapter vocabulary about two chapters ahead, learn the chapter, do every single problem, then go over the mistakes at the next lesson. The outcome after a year was solid grammar and clean translation in both directions, and badly neglected listening and speaking. That is the book's honest weakness: it will not teach you to talk. Plan the speaking separately from day one. I did not, and I paid for it later in listening practice I should have been doing all along.
Our longer review of A New Arabic Grammar goes chapter by chapter. If it looks too steep, the Madina series and Mastering Arabic on our list of Arabic grammar books ramp up more gently, and Madinah Arabic puts a full grammar course online for free.
Buy a tutor before you buy anything else
One hour a week with a tutor does more than any app on this page. A tutor catches a wrong letter sound in week one instead of year three, answers the question a grammar book leaves unanswered, and forces you to speak, which is the skill self-study quietly drops.
I had lessons over Skype every weekday for more than a year, and I would not have got through the grammar book without them. Weekday sessions are more than most people need or can pay for. One or two a week, with homework between them, does the job. Tutors set their own hourly rate, so shop around on our list of Arabic tutors and services, which covers italki, Natakallam, conversation exchanges, and the audio course services.
If you want the structure and a qualification at the end instead, our list of universities and Arabic institutes covers online certificates, summer intensives, and immersion programs in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon.
The best app to learn Arabic
The best app for learning Arabic is Anki, a general flashcard program with no Arabic content of its own. It wins because you fill it with exactly the words and rules that are giving you trouble, and its spaced repetition schedule brings each one back just before you forget it. It was used at every stage: letters, then words, then grammar rules, then whole sentences.
| App | What it does | Cost | Our verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anki | Spaced-repetition flashcards you build yourself | Free on desktop and Android, paid app on iPhone | Top pick. The one app that survived every stage. |
| HelloTalk | Text and voice exchange with native speakers | Free tier | Worth installing once you can form a sentence. Useless before that. |
| Living Arabic | Dictionary covering Classical, Egyptian and Levantine Arabic | Free on the web, apps for Android and iPhone | The dictionary app to install if you are learning a dialect. |
| ArabicPod101 | Audio lessons with written notes and vocabulary lists | Subscription | Good listening practice alongside a book. Too scattered to be the book. |
| Pimsleur | Listen-and-repeat audio drills | Subscription, free trial | Good for accent and travel phrases. It will not get you reading. |
| Duolingo Arabic | Gamified Modern Standard Arabic course | Free tier | Supplement only. Our reasons are below. |
What we skipped, and why
Three things that get recommended constantly for Arabic are not part of our answer. Here is the reason in each case.
Is Al-Kitaab good for self-study?
Not on its own. I took a four-course university Arabic certificate built entirely on the Al-Kitaab series, after already working through the grammar book above. I did not learn one new grammar point in it. The course was quite lacking: the series trades away grammar explanation, and teaches a few bad habits along the way, in order to spend the space on listening and speaking. The tell was that most of my classmates were quietly passing round other grammar books to fill the gaps. Al-Kitaab is on our grammar list because with a teacher who supplements it properly it works well. Alone, on your kitchen table, it does not. I do not regret the certificate. Having someone else confirm the level was worth something to me. I just did not learn any Arabic from it.
Is Duolingo good for learning Arabic?
Duolingo Arabic is fine as a warm-up and wrong as a plan. It gives you no grammar explanation, so you cannot work out why a sentence took the shape it did. It has you tapping prepared word tiles instead of producing Arabic from nothing. And it keeps transliteration in front of you well past the point where you should have stopped reading it. Keep it for the days you have ten minutes and no energy. Do not mistake the streak for progress.
Can you use Al Arabiyyah Bayna Yadayk without a tutor?
Only if you already have the grammar, and even then only with the answer key. The book itself is excellent and I am still working through it. Its four units open each chapter with a conversation, then vocabulary, then sentence drills, then reading comprehension, and it improved my speaking and listening more than anything else I used. The problem is that it sprinkles grammar rules everywhere and explains almost none of them. Without a tutor or at minimum the answer key, a beginner will be stuck inside a week. Come to it after a grammar book, not before.
Once you can read a sentence
The moment reading stops being decoding, switch most of your study time to input. Two things get you there. The first is learning to use an Arabic dictionary, which is not alphabetical the way an English one is: words are filed under the three consonants of their root, so مكتب maktab (office) sits under the root k-t-b next to كتاب kitab (book). Our guide to Arabic dictionaries and how to look a word up walks through it and names the free online options.
The second is graded reading. Qisas an-Nabiyin starts with simple words and gets harder chapter by chapter, bilingual short-story collections put the translation on the facing page, and children's books are the easiest real Arabic in existence. They are all on our list of Arabic reading books. Around the same point, pick one dialect and stop switching. If you have not chosen yet, we score the eight main dialects and name one in which Arabic dialect to learn; the Arabic dialect resources hub then covers every dialect we have material for.
Your first month, concretely
If you want the plan rather than the reasoning, this is what the first four weeks look like.
- Weeks 1 and 2. Thirty minutes a day on the alphabet, from a book with audio. Write each letter by hand in all its forms. Put every letter into Anki on day one and review it every morning. Stop reading transliteration after day three.
- Week 3. Read short vowelled words aloud, every day, and time yourself on a fixed passage so you can see the number fall. Keep adding to Anki.
- Week 4. Open chapter one of the grammar book and do every exercise in it. Book a first tutor session and read your homework aloud to them.
That is the whole method. It is slower in month one than an app and far faster by month six. Before you start, two questions are worth settling: whether Arabic is actually hard to learn, which depends entirely on which skill you mean, and how long it takes to learn Arabic, where the published estimates and a real learner's timeline do not agree. For the full route map, including where the Quran and the dialects fit, read our guide on how to start learning Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to learn Arabic on your own?
Learn the alphabet from a book with audio, then work one grammar book front to back and do every exercise in it. We recommend A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language by Haywood and Nahmad, with its answer key, because a self-studier needs a book that explains the rule rather than one that only shows it. Put every new word into Anki and review it daily. Add a tutor as soon as you can afford one, even once a week.
What is the best app to learn Arabic?
Anki, which is a general flashcard program with no Arabic content of its own. It is the only app that stayed useful from the first letter to reading books, because you fill it with the exact words and rules you are struggling with. It is free on desktop and Android and a paid app on iPhone. Language apps are worth keeping as supplements, not as the plan.
Is Duolingo good for learning Arabic?
It is a supplement, not a method. Duolingo Arabic gives no grammar explanation, keeps you tapping word tiles instead of producing sentences, and leans on transliteration long after you should have dropped it. If you enjoy it, use it as a warm-up before real study. On its own it will not get you reading unvocalized Arabic.
Should I learn Modern Standard Arabic or a dialect first?
Learn whichever one you will actually use first. MSA, called fusha, is the register of writing, news, and the Quran, and it is what almost every grammar book teaches. A dialect is what people speak. If your goal is reading, start with MSA. If your goal is talking to people in one country, start with that dialect and add MSA later. Trying to do both from day one is how beginners stall.
How much does it cost to learn Arabic?
You can get to reading fluency for the price of two books and nothing else, since Anki is free on desktop and Android and there are free grammar courses and free Foreign Service Institute audio courses online. The one thing worth paying for is a tutor, priced per hour and set by the tutor. Prices and plans change, so check before you buy anything named on this page.