Practise Arabic with a native speaker, and give them English conversation practice in return. Roughly 274 million people speak Arabic natively, so partners are easy to find; the useful discipline is showing up on time.
Endonym
العربية
Script
Arabic script, written right to left, with no capital letters
Spoken in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates
First thing to learn
مرحبا — "Hello"
US Foreign Service Institute estimate for an English speaker starting from zero
~88 weeks
Furthest from English
The written language and the spoken language are different things. Modern Standard Arabic is what you study and what the news uses, but nobody chats in it - each region speaks its own dialect, and learners who only study MSA can end up unable to hold a normal conversation.
Knowing this in advance changes what you do with a partner. Grammar drills on Arabicwill not fix a habit your first language gave you — only producing the sentence out loud and being corrected will. That is the specific thing an exchange gives you and an app does not.
A language exchange dies when nobody has anything to talk about. Take these into the call and you will fill the first half without silences.
Say مرحبا (MAR-ha-ba) as your first line, then ask your partner when they would use it and when they would choose something more formal.
Ask your partner to write your own name in العربية, then explain which sounds in your name do not exist in Arabic.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Egypt. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Arabic first, then again in English.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Saudi Arabia. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Arabic first, then again in English.
Ask your partner for one sentence that exposes the hard part: The written language and the spoken language are different things.
Switch to English and ask your partner to explain their own language's hardest feature to you. This is the half where you pay for the practice, so take it as seriously as your own turn.
You are not here to improve your English — you already have it. Practise Arabic with someone who speaks it natively, and pay for it by answering their English questions properly. Fluent English speakers are the scarcest resource on an exchange, which is why you will match quickly.
There is strong and consistent demand for English practice across the Gulf and North Africa, and Arabic is one of the languages English speakers most often want in exchange, so both sides of this pair are usually easy to match.
88 weeks of full-time study to working proficiency, on the US Foreign Service Institute scale - furthest from english. The written language and the spoken language are different things. Modern Standard Arabic is what you study and what the news uses, but nobody chats in it - each region speaks its own dialect, and learners who only study MSA can end up unable to hold a normal conversation.
Around 274 million native speakers, concentrated in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco. English has already borrowed algebra, alcohol, sugar from it, so you are not starting from nothing.
Arabic script, written right to left, with no capital letters. Because the script is not the one you read in now, reading and speaking improve at different rates and are worth practising separately rather than hoping conversation covers both.
مرحبا (MAR-ha-ba) - "Hello". مرحبا is neutral and fine anywhere. السلام عليكم (as-salaamu alaykum) is more common across the region and is the safest opening with someone you do not know.
algebra, alcohol, sugar, coffee, magazine, cotton and lemon all reached English from Arabic - 7 words you can use on day one.
Free matching, free voice calls, free video calls. One twenty-minute call is enough to know whether it works for you.
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