Learning Arabic? Here Are 5 Books That I Highly Recommend You Own
You’ll hear me talk about the Arabic language a lot on this site.
Although I regard myself as a veteran language learner of many languages and a polyglot, I can say with the utmost confidence and pride that Arabic is something I’m an expert in with over a decade of experience, both linguistic and cultural.
I’m referring to the Egyptian dialect and Modern Standard specifically (in some ways they can be regarded as two separate languages given their differences).
I don’t know if it’s because I started learning it as a teenager or just because of the length of time I’ve spent on it but Arabic is the only language I don’t have to spend time activating if I don’t use it for a long period of time.
If I was going to spend time in France for example, I’d probably need to spend a short period of time turning French on by going over material and so on because it tends to go into hibernation if I don’t use it.
With Arabic it’s not the case.
I can go long periods of time without talking to anybody or hearing it and it’s just always there for instant retrieval as soon as I need it.
This is not to say that I’m perfect at the language by any means – I make mistakes all the time which I’m happy to admit – but this language has become so part of me now that it’s core to my identity as a person.
I like to think of myself as a bilingual kid who started late.
Anyway I’ll share my story of how and why I came to learn Arabic in the near future but for now I wanted to recommend a few excellent books to people who are wanting to learn Arabic.
If you’re trying to decide on another language but haven’t made up your mind as to which one then consider Arabic! It’ll be one of the most rewarding decisions you ever make.
Arabic Language Books That You Should Own
Note FYI: The links here are affiliate links which means that a tiny fraction of any purchase will help keep this site up and running.
Another note: I haven’t mentioned any books here to do with learning the Arabic alphabet. Frankly I don’t recommend you spend money on alphabet books because a simple Google search will give you what you need for this.
I’ve had arguments in language learning forums with people adamant that they need to spend money on alphabet books like Alif Baa’.
Please take it from a guy who learned how to read Arabic in 1 day using free internet sites – you don’t need to waste your money on alphabet books. Arabic is not as hard to read as it looks!
1. The Kalimni ‘Arabi Series
These are, in my opinion, the best books for learning Arabic in existence.
I bought the higher advanced Kalimni ‘Arabi Fi Kull Haaga (Speak Arabic To Me In Everything) book last year and I swear to God (wallahi), this is the most outstanding and useful book that I’ve ever owned (I have two big bookcases full of hundreds of books and dozens on Arabic and this is my favourite).
I can not stress to you enough how good this series is.
They come with CD’s and DVD’s full of interesting interviews and high quality audio in real colloquial speech.
You’ll get plenty of reading practice too because thankfully there is no transliteration of the text. Even in the beginner book, it’ll get you reading straight away.
There are books available for pretty much every level:
Beginner: Kalimni ‘Arabi Bishweesh (Speak Arabic To Me Slowly)
Intermediate: Kalimni ‘Arabi (Speak Arabic To Me)
Upper Intermediate: Kalimni ‘Arabi Aktar (Speak More Arabic To Me)
Early Advanced: Kalimni ‘Arabi Mazboot (Speak Arabic To Me Properly)
Higher Advanced (for some reason this one is only available through AUC Press directly): Kalimni ‘Arabi Fi Kull Haaga (Speak Arabic To Me In Everything)
If there’s one investment you make on your Arabic study let it be this series.
2. ‘Arabi Liblib
I went into a bit of detail about this book in this post so I won’t go over it again.
It’s a three part series and the books are glossaries of terms and expressions you’ll find in colloquial Egyptian Arabic (relevant to other dialects as well) aimed at advanced learners who want to do the final tweaking on all the small details.
If you plan to master colloquial Arabic or really understand slang in the Middle East, you should get this series.
3. A New Arabic Grammar Of The Written Language – Haywood | Nahmad
I’ve used a lot of Arabic grammar books for Modern Standard and Classical Arabic over the years.
This one is by far the best one I’ve ever used. Even though the print makes it look like it’s a little outdated, it’s actually a very clear, well structured and easy grammar to follow with lots of example passages to work with from newspapers, the Quran and novels.
When I started studying MSA years ago, I sat down and worked through this book on my own from start to finish and it had a huge impact on my learning success.
If you’re planning to learn how to read the news or classical literature you should have a copy of this on your desk.
4. Al Mawrid Arabic-English English-Arabic Dictionary - Baalbaki
This is the mother of all Arabic dictionaries.
It might seem like a slightly over-priced dictionary but believe me I’d be absolutely f****d without this thing.
Whether you’re working as a translator or just want an excellent dictionary to work with, this book is worth its weight in gold (and it is damn heavy!).
The reason why this dictionary beats the shit out of any other Arabic dictionary on the market is that it doesn’t just list single meanings beside word stems. It’ll give you a word stem, then it’ll give you some commonly derived forms and word pairings as you’d find them in newspapers and so on, with some examples.
For this reason, it serves as a dictionary and a glossary of terms.
The only drawback is the size and weight of this book. If you want to travel with it, it’s like carrying a brick in your luggage! (still definitely worth it though 
)
5. Media Arabic – A Coursebook For Reading Arabic News
Last recommendation for today.
This is for people wanting to learn how to read newspapers specifically and it is slightly advanced.
Media Arabic helps you learn and apply critical reading skills to Arabic news articles. It’s broken up into sections on politics, economics, technology, terrorism and so on, and each section commences by offering core vocabulary found in the articles.
It teaches you how to skim for main ideas, connectors and words that indicate the who, what, why and how of the article. This book shows you how to make sense of a newspaper even if you don’t know every word.
What I really like about this book is the way it teaches how to pay attention to author bias and opinion by the article’s use of certain words.
If you have an interest in journalism, politics or propaganda in Middle Eastern media this book is an absolute treasure!
That’s my 5 recommendations today for Arabic learners.
If you’ve got another book that you want to recommend here or you want to ask me about any other books or products on Arabic you can do it in the comments section below. There are Barnes and Noble promotional codes that can possibly save money on any language books.
This was written by Donovan Nagel.
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Thanks a lot, I'm just starting Arabic, will definitely check these out!
Also, do you happen to have any recommendations for good sources of audio with transcripts? I've found some for the news (i.e. the text of the story being read aloud), but can't find anything more day-to-day. For learning Chinese I used Chinesepod, which gives you a dialogue/conversation, and the matching text. If you know of something similar for Arabic I would be extremely grateful!!!
Hey, very good article. I have been learning Arabic for a year. @Rowan, there is indeed a chinesepod equivalent for Arabic and it's ArabicPod.net. My favourite website actually.
Thanks for that! Very useful article for learning Arabic
Rowan, there are some transcripts here http://www.arabiconline.eu. Just have to enter the course. It is free and also has voice recording system so you can practice your pronounciation.
Hey Rowan.
The first book that I listed here – Kalimni 'Arabi – actually has all the transcripts for its CD dialogues and all of it is 'day to day' conversation.
What dialect are you learning?
Hi, thanks, i'm actually in china at the moment, so will have to wait until I get back home before I can buy the books! I was just looking for some online audio&transcripts in the meantime
I'm planning to do MSA first, then choose a dialect later. Do you think that's the best idea? Or would you recommend starting them both at the same time?
Hey, yeah I had a look, but unfortunately for most of the lessons they don't have the dialogue as a separate audio file
you can only download the 10-15 minute lessons, which doesn't make it very easy to review (plus most of it is in english at the beginner stages)
It really depends on your goals, Rowan.
Are you learning so that you can travel to the Middle East? If so, I'd put MSA on hold and jump straight into a dialect (that's what I did). If you walk around speaking MSA, people will understand you but you'll sound funny and you won't understand them at all when they speak back at you.
If you're learning just out of interest at home, to read Arabic sites or for work, then stick with MSA.
Hi Donovan, I also love the Kallimni 'Arabi series. And one of my professors wrote Media Arabic, so of course I love it too! But I'm also here to plug (hope you don't mind). I just launched a new company teaching Egyptian Arabic. We use online video to teach and I need feedback from folks like you about our method. (You say you don't like transliteration? Hmm, we might have to change that…) Lingo Village is at http://www.lingovillage.com.
G'day Chris.
I like the idea of your website and method. There is a shortage of dialect-specific courses online so it's good to see. It's also great that you've got some native speakers helping you with the project.
I'd be happy to collaborate with you more in future if you're up for it.
Please visit my Arabic channel I hope it will help you guys with your learning journey. http://www.youtube.com/user/learnarabiceasilyhttp…
I’ve been studying arabic language intensively for years now and I just stumbled upon your web site ( through the The Arabic Student blog ) and I’m happy to see another language website with an interest in this language …
For french people, or anyone who knows french, I’d recommend begining with “Méthode Assimil, l’arabe sans peine”, it’s only on MSA, but it helped me a lot as a beginner ( and I’m totally for learning MSA even if you’re only interested in a dialect, it make learning dialects much easier afterwards … At least that’s how it worked for me ). And it’s one of the cheapest methods I found ( you don’t have to buy the CDs with it, you can find them easily on internet ).
Thanks Louisa.
I'm glad you found my blog! I hope you stick around as you'd have a lot of great insight to offer people I'm sure.
I haven't experimented with non-English Arabic resources yet but I think I will soon. I'll make sure to check out Méthode Assimil first
alf shukr!
Have you anything in mind? (also, love the Egyptian Arabic vid about بيت احلامك!)
I'm a non-Arab Muslim trying to understand the Qur'an better when it's being recited at a normal pace. Will the books you recommended help me learn Classical Arabic pretty well? I'm hoping I can be decently fluent in the language of the Qur'an specifically.
Hi Saad,
The third book (Haywood – New Arabic Grammar Of The Written Language) will definitely help you with the Quran as a lot of the exercises and samples are from the Quran, Hadith and other Islamic texts.
I highly recommend it.
Good luck!
The Kalimni ‘Arabi Series seems to be for Egyptian Arabic. Is it also suitable for MSA or are there better alternatives?
If you only want to learn MSA then I'd recommend the other book I've mentioned here – Haywood's New Arabic Grammar Of The Written Language. It's a brilliant book for MSA learners.
If you eventually want to be able to communicate in spoken Arabic then definitely get Kalimni 'Arabi.
I am going to visit Saudi Arabia and i am interested in learning arabic. Can you please recommend me a dialect for Saudia since i don't know which dialect they speak there.
I am interested in both spoken arabic and the Quranic arabic but i would like to start learning with spoken arabic. Is that a good idea?
And finally please also advise on resource to use for the purpose.
Your sites is a gold mine for language learners and i absolutely love it. Thanks for all your hard work.
i want kuwait arabi.do u have that book
A book that I might recommend for learning any language is the Bible. It gets translated in all the major languages, with multiple translations in some language, and you can open it up in both languages and read it in each and compare.
the first one that you mentioned, I noticed it is for egyptian arabic. Do they make standard arabic(like saudi arabian) lessons?
Hello. I'm a newbie here and beginning Arabic. I stumbled across this site when I was looking for a better book for self-study. I started learning the alphabet with 'The Arabic Alphabet' by Nicholas Awde & Putros Samano, which I think is good. I am now working through 'Read and Write Arabic Script' by Mourad Diouri. I am having great difficulty reading some of the script which is so small that I have to use a magnifying glass to see all the detail. You recommend the Kallimni series, but when I read the reviews on Amazon I was disappointed to find these books are intended for teachers of Arabic teaching students. Could you please recommend a beginner's book for self-study, with script that is as large and clear enough as Awde & Samano's book? Thank you.
Hi Donovan,
Liked the write up and reviews! Now could you please enlighten me as to how to get hold of these books.
Thanks, in anticipation,
Vikram.
Just click on the links above and it'll take you to the sales page. There are several sites that stock these books but I find Amazon to be the most convenient.
Most textbooks are designed to be used in a classroom setting but honestly, it all comes down to how you use them.
There are a few exercises in the Kalimni 'Arabi books that are meant to be done with classmates but you can work through those on your own – just practice them, rewrite them and most importantly, jump on Skype and practice them if you can.
Even for a self-learner, Kalimni 'Arabi is superior in my opinion.
No they don't unfortunately.
I wish they did.
An Arabic Bible was one of the first books I used actually.
The only problem is the language is very archaic (classical). Good for reading but won't help your speaking much.
No unfortunately. Wish I did!
Thanks very much!
For Saudi specifically there's not a lot. The only one I've tried is Colloquial Arabic Of The Gulf. There's also a popular book by FSI.
Thanks for your response. I grew impatient waiting for reply, so decided to give Mastering Arabic (Jane Wightwick & Mahmoud Gaafar) a try. Have also bought the Arabic bilingual dictionary by N Aude & K Smith, which I find helpful. Will maybe look at the Kalimni books later.
I would suggest Pimsleur's Language programs. The best.
Hello every one ,I am MOEMEN from Egypt I am naitve Arabic speaking Person I don’t mind to help anyone wanted to learn Arabic and I will need your help in English so if anyone is interested Pleas let me know by adding me on the skype My ID is diver_imca1 there we can exchange the language English with Arabic, looking forward to hear from you guys .
I have no idea from where you get this idea of Arabic being the easiest language to learn? Learning Arabic is challenging as it is difficult lingo, second to Chinese language in terms of it grammar , syntax, sentence structured and language rules. Arabic is mother tongue, so I know what I am talking about. Najwan El-Magboul