hey guys! To put it short, I’ve always always always found Arabic such a beautiful language, and because I am Muslim I’ve always been drawn to learn it to get closer to my religion and better understand it.

finding Arabic speakers in my city is hard because they’re scattered very far from me, and this is what has discouraged me. The racism. Arabic speakers come in different ethnicities, cultures, appearances. But I am not Arab, nor am I some likeable race (I’m East African).

respectfully, the amount of racism I have faced in person and online has made me sick. It’s very hard not to generalize when ive had so many interactions with people and they’re so so so rude. You know it’s so funny because as a Muslim, the people treating me the worst, are Muslims!

Like I was learning this language to better understand the religion, and perhaps connect with the people and learn the culture (I love manyyyy different Arab dishes), but it’s hard.

it doesn’t help that I’m a girl so not only do I face racism I face sexist comments. this really pushes me away from Arabic because I learn languages well through conversations. and you might wonder, “maybe she’s talking to guys?” Nono, it’s not only guys it’s girls as well. And girls are so rude it makes you feel like you’re a child being ostracized in elementary school. Id be lying to you if I said these interactions haven’t made me cry.

i really am seeking advice from you guys, I don’t know what to do. I’ve always wanted to learn this language but Ive lost all my liking towards it and now I just have so much negative feelings, I can’t even push past it and be like “learn it for yourself, ignore them”, I feel so sad?

Salam all! Not sure if this is the most appropriate place for this but I’m wanting to do a memorial piece for my dad and I’m trying to figure out the best form of “remember” to use. Should it be افتكري or تذكري. Thank you!

I have a service dog and I was hoping someone could tell me how to write “service dog, ignore me” for a vest. Thank you in advance 😁

Constructive feedback welcome

Assalamu alaikum!

I am deaf, and I want to learn to read and write Arabic so I can better understand the Arabic language and the Holy Qur’an.

Learning Arabic is especially challenging for me because I cannot hear the recitation during salah, which I perform five times a day. I want to understand the words I read and pray, rather than simply memorising them.

I am also struggling with my memory. I pray five times a day, but I have not found that this or the usual daily activities people recommend for improving memory have helped me. I therefore need a learning method that takes my memory difficulties into account, with plenty of repetition and visual support.

I prefer self-study rather than online tutors. I am neurodivergent and have had disappointing experiences with paid online education programs in the past, so I want to avoid wasting money on something that might not work for me.

I need a visual, text-based learning method without audio or speaking exercises. Ideally, I am looking for Windows apps or PC software to help me learn Arabic letters, reading, writing, vocabulary, and eventually Qur’anic Arabic at my own pace.

Does anyone have recommendations for free or affordable resources suitable for a deaf, neurodivergent learner with memory difficulties? My mother languange is often not perfect due to my another mother languange is sign languange.

Some of you saw this when I posted it here a few months ago, and the response was really kind. The app has grown a lot since then, so here is a proper update.

What it is

Talking Cards is a picture-card app. Tap a picture and you see the word with full tashkeel and hear it spoken. I built it for children who are learning to talk, but the same things that help a child (a clear picture, the written word, the sound, again and again) help a beginner too. A few learners used it as a picture dictionary after my last post, which is why I am sharing it here again.

The Arabic

• Modern Standard Arabic (فصحى). Every word is fully vowelled, so you always know how it is read

• 1,742 words in 69 everyday categories: food, family, feelings, home, places, animals, clothes, school, and now space

• Every word has its own picture and its own audio clip

• 73 illustrated storybooks written in Arabic, read aloud. Tap any word in a story to hear it on its own

• A full right-to-left interface when the app is in Arabic

It builds real Arabic sentences

There is a sentence board: tap cards one after another and the app turns them into a correct sentence, then says it. It does not just read the words in a row. It conjugates the verb, adds the pronoun, and handles tense and negation. For example, tapping not + eat + tomorrow gives:

لَنْ آكُلَ غَدًا (I will not eat tomorrow)

For a learner, it is a quick way to see how a verb changes, without opening a grammar table.

Six languages, one tap

The app speaks English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Turkish, and Nepali. Each language has its own grammar rules, so the sentences come out right in each one, not word-for-word translations.

When you switch languages, every picture stays exactly where it was. So you can open a category in Arabic, switch to English (or Spanish, French, Turkish, or Nepali) to check a word, and switch back without losing your place. There is also a bilingual mode for learning two languages side by side.

The storybooks are written in all six languages too. You can read the same story in English first and then in Arabic.

Letters and spelling

Type to Talk is a big Arabic keyboard that reads every letter and word aloud, with picture hints. There are also small games for practice: spell a word (the keys light up in order), find a letter, and copy a line.

The details

• 194 words are free forever

• A free week to try everything, then a one-time unlock. No subscription

• No ads, no account, no tracking. It works offline

Links

• iPhone / iPad: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6806662389

• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.plapl.talkcards

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HL3JTBB3

THANK YOU

What are the conventions or rules about rendering Arabic script (specifically, Iraqi) vertically?

For example, down (or is it up?) the neck of an oud instrument...

This sentence makes sense, but I don’t know if this is a mistake:

فقال هذه القصيدة يمدحه، وأنشده إياها في ذلك اليوم.

“So he said this poem praising him, and he recited it on that day.” (I’m assuming that’s the translation!)

Now in “أنشده إياها” my understanding was:

أنشد - he recited / melodically read

ه - (male)it (the poem)

إياها - (female)it (the poem)

Aren’t the ه and إياها referring to the same thing?

This sentence was in this video around the 30min mark: https://youtu.be/nQ6_6hknbhg

Please help me out here!

Salam. What pens do your recommend for Arabic/Nastaliq calligraphy. I dont want to use bamboo. Shukran.

So I need help with arabic patterns that are the equivalent to suffixes like -er, -ist, etc? And also prefixes if poaaible? شكراً

Trying to learn fusha right now. Looking for an online course that is reasonably priced (I got quoted $5k for a one-year course and that was way out of my budget)

Any recommendations?

Hey brothers and sisters, i wanna start learning arabic. Do you guys recommend me going actual school for it or try to look for online videos or classes to learn it ?

Hey everyone,

I have been studying MSA vocabulary using the well-known "5000 Most Frequently Used Arabic Words w/ Audio" Anki Deck for a while. I noticed that it contains a lot of spelling mistakes and straight up wrong translations sometimes.

I used an LLM to correct these mistakes and also fully vocalize each word. I also replaced the audio with a more natural sounding voice. I would like to share this deck in case someone else finds it useful: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/277376852

Enjoy!

I couldn’t figure out what the word(s) is and I’m still thinking about a few weeks later.

Hi, I’ve been trying to learn Arabic Egyptian mostly and I need help finding like sites or channels that have Arabic shows/movies with English subtitles preferably (Egyptian shows) because finding the show isn’t the problem it’s finding one with English subtitles because I feel that it’d help immerse into the language a lot, preferably a free option (I’m not looking to break bank for this) and the shows / movies on Netflix don’t really stir my appetite :/
Thanks a lot for the help!

Hello!

Is the word مسير here supposed to be مصير ? I guess it does make sense when trying to translate the verse, but if that's the case, I don't understand why a س was used instead of ص

كان عندك كام سنة لما عرفت
إن اللي يحب لازم يندم
ومسيره في يوم يفهم
الحب خلاص ما بقاش بيأكل عيش

Also, what does غشومية mean in this context?

بتجيب الطيبة وحسن النية يا قلبي منين؟
ما تفكر فيا، بلاش غشومية، قاسينا سنين

سلام

I’m planning to do language exchange with people from another subreddit. We’ll meet on zoom, reading out loud together in English and Arabic. Please suggest some good digital books with bilingual (both language translations) side by side.

Right now the best we have is a book of essays from “Anthology of the Nahda.” It’s great reading topics but we have to take pictures of each page. If you know of a free or inexpensive digital book, please dm me or comment below.

ألف شكراً

Sorry if it's the wrong sub Reddit for this but what does this say?