This course aims to teach you the Arabic language the way native speakers experience it: they speak a colloquial variant of Arabic, depending on their region, and they read and understand Modern Standard Arabic (FuS7a).

In this course, you’ll learn to speak Egyptian Arabic, which is spoken in Egypt and widely understood throughout the Arab world. In parallel, you’ll learn to read the Arabic script and understand what you read. All your learning skills are practised during each lesson. You practise speaking through simple conversations, greetings, formalities, talking about yourself and getting to know someone, asking for and offering a drink, counting, and asking simple questions. The second part of each lesson is dedicated to learning the Arabic script. You practise reading individual words and then sentences. In the next course (A1.1), you’ll be able to read a whole story in Modern Standard Arabic. You also learn the rules of writing and how to connect the letters together to form words. The course is very practical and active participation is encouraged and required of the student!

Course Objectives

1. Read and understand a short text in Modern Standard Arabic.
2. Write words using the Arabic script.
3. Build a solid basic vocabulary of around 300 words.
4. Count to 10.
5. Greet people and answer basic formalities.
6. Introduce yourself and others, ask and answer questions about personal details such as where you live, where you learn Arabic, and what you do in life, and offer and order drinks.

Homework consists of different assignments for learning new vocabulary and sentences, reading, listening and writing exercises. On average, you spend about 3 hours per week on homework.