Latest Articles

Sherine Abdel-Wahab

Sherine Abdel-Wahab شِرِين عِبْدَ الوَهَاب In this post, some differences between Egyptian dialect and MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) are highlighted through a song by a popular Egyptian singer, Sherine Abdel-Wahab. The song is called حُبُه جَنَّة ‘his love is heaven’, and it is taken from a recent album of hers entitled نَسَّاي ‘the one who forgets me.’ This album includes twel…

Diacritics in Arabic (1)

Diacritics in Arabic (1) Is there a word in English without a vowel? No. Linguistically, there cannot be a word/syllable without a vowel/syllabic consonant (i.e., a consonant that has some features of a vowel sound). Vowels help us divide words into syllables. Besides, it is articulatorily difficult to move from one consonant to another. Therefore, vowels aid the movement/tran…

Latest Tests

Reading Comprehension Test (40)

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (40) Read the Story الْحَيَّةُ الْبَيْضَاءُ and answer the following questions.

Reading Comprehension Test (39)

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (39) Read the Story التَّاجِرُ مَرْمَرُ and answer the following questions.

Reading Comprehension Test (38)

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (38) Read the Story الشَّيْخُ الْهِنْدِيُّ and answer the following questions.

Reading Comprehension Test (37)

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (37) Read the Story حِذَاءُ الْبَخِيلِ and answer the following questions.

Latest E-books & Handouts

Ibnulyemen Arabic Attached Pronouns

Attached pronouns in Arabic are the pronouns that we attach to verbs, nouns, prepositions, or particles. Generally speaking, pronouns in Arabic are separate, attached, or implicit (i.e. implied or not overt). The separate pronouns  in Arabic are similar to the subject pronouns found in most world languages in addition to the dual and feminine forms that exist in Arabic. As for …

Ibnulyemen Arabic Alphabet and Cursive Writing

Arabic is a right-to-left cursive language. This short e-book "Ibnulyemen Arabic Alphabet and Cursive Writing" typographically shows how the Arabic letters are connected to to form words. There are twenty-eight letters in Arabic. Each letter has four shapes: at the beginning of the word, in the middle of the word, at the end of the word, and in isolation. This, as a result, see…

Ibnulyemen Arabic Short Stories for Non-natives

This is a short e-book of eleven short stories written in simplified Arabic. The original versions of these stories were written by Kamel Kilani and Mohammed Al-Abrashi, both Egyptian writers. They are fairly long and meant for native speakers of Arabic. The wording and structures of these stories have been tweaked and simplified to make them suitable for (advanced) beginner le…

Attached Pronouns

Attached pronouns in Arabic are pronominal suffixes; for each separate pronoun there is a corresponding attached pronoun. These pronominal suffixes are are attached to nouns, prepositions, and verbs. With nouns, they function as possessive pronouns. With preposition, they function as object of prepositions. With verbs, they function as either subjects or objects.  In the table …