It’s time for another 9 Reasons video! This time – 9 Reasons to Learn Arabic.

My story

Arabic is a language that I’ve never really crossed paths with for long. In 2013, I visited Morocco, and despite already knowing French, decided to learn some basic Arabic for the trip.

I did end up using mostly French, although “laa, shukraan” proved very handy to say “no, thank you” to touts when arriving somewhere new or walking across Jemaa el-Fnaa, the square in Marrakesh.

Other than that, I looked a little closer at the script during my Language Script Challenge in 2015.

Since then it’s a language I’ve not yet had the chance to learn in any detail, which is why I asked Twitter to help me share with you some of the best resources for learning Arabic. Thank you to everyone who shared the resoruces mentioned below!

Resources

Talk In Arabic – This is a great resource from Donovan of The Mezzofanti Guild, who’s immersed himself in a variety of Arabic dialects over the years.

ArabicPod101 – I love the Pod101 series! See how you can use it everyday with this post inspired by my studies of Japanese using the Japanese version of this tool.

Learn Arabic With Maha – People kept recommending this channel when I asked on Twitter and there’s plenty here to get you started.

Arabic Online – There’s a handful of free resources on this site to help you learn the basics.

Madinah Arabic – Lots of lessons here both for people who can and can’t already read Arabic. If you can’t, you’ll start off with their Arabic Reading Course. Yay!

Live Lingua – There’s tons of free resources for many different dialects over on Live Lingua. This link is for MSA, Modern Standard Arabic.

9 Reasons to Learn Arabic

But the main reason for this post is that finally we can share one of the most requested 9 Reasons videos – 9 Reasons to Learn Arabic!

Huge thanks to Meredith, who’s been on the blog before sharing 10 amusing approaches to Arabic, for helping me with the reasons in this video.

If you’re still not convinced, check out this guest post from a few years back by Donovan Nagel, the guy behind Talk in Arabic.