Arabic Beginners - Level 1

Arabic is one of today’s most relevant languages – and not as difficult to learn as you may think.

The course covers everything from the alphabet to grammatical structures, greetings to describing objects. We’ll introduce the Arabic script, letter by letter, to learn its unique sounds and develop listening and speaking skills.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll learn how to make polite requests and express likes and dislikes. We’ll also spend time exploring Arabic media and culture.

By the end of the course, you’ll understand the structure of Arabic and feel confident translating simple sentences, communicating at CEFR A1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages.

Who is it for?

We’ve designed this course for complete beginners, so don’t worry if you’ve never attempted Arabic before.

Timetable

The full beginners course includes 72 hours of online learning and is taught across six modules.

Benefits

• Delivered by a qualified and native Arabic speaker
• Interactive and varied learning techniques
• Awarded a City St George’s, University of London certificate.

We’ve designed this course to help you understand the structure of Arabic. The three parts will help you learn to speak, read, write and listen to simple Arabic sentences.

Throughout the year, you’ll learn:

• to write and read the alphabet and recognise sounds (phonetics)
• some colloquial Arabic
• greetings and introducing yourself
• to describe everyday objects, surroundings, family, countries and people
• to talk about daily routines, numbers and prices, telling time and weather
• to discuss food, drink and activities
• to discuss likes and dislikes
• to handle simple daily conversation and request information
• to talk about present, past and future events
• Arabic culture including Arab countries and capitals, political system and media.

Grammatical structures

• Subject and predicate
• Pronouns: separate; attached
• Expressing possession
• The relative noun Nisba
• Gender in Arabic nouns
• Diacritical marks Shadda, madda, tanwin, sukun
• Demonstrative pronouns; gender agreements
• Contrast particles
• Assimilating and non-assimilating sounds; sun and moon letters
• Definite and indefinite nouns; idafa structure; dual nouns; plural of non-rational noun (non-human)
• Arabic verbs; object of verbs
• Negatives
• Interrogative form
• Ordinal numbers and number noun agreement
• Preposition of place
• Object of prepositions
• Pronouns of separation
• Present tense: conjugation; negation
• Revisiting idafa structure
• Imperative mood
• Cardinal numbers 11-999
• Expressing possessive using different particles
• Attached pronouns suffixed to verbs
• Adverbs of time
• Past tense: conjugation; negation
• Verbal nouns masder.

You will receive a Certificate of Completion from City St George’s, University of London, along with a digital badge for your LinkedIn profile.

To qualify, you must attend at least 70% of classes.

Teaching

Classes are highly interactive and include:

• Small group work and role-play
• Listening to audio materials (e.g. radio clips)
• Reading articles and texts
• Watching video content
• Digital learning tools to support your progress

You’ll also explore Arabic culture, current affairs and traditions alongside language learning.

This course is aimed as those who are completely new to Arabic.

If you have a little experience, or you are willing to do some self study to catch up, you can join us on one of the later modules.

Please do reach out to our team if you’re not sure which level is right for you.

Additional requirements

To enrol onto the Beginners Arabic course, you must:

• be age 18 or over
• have basic IT skills and a reliable internet connection to access lessons and course materials.

English requirements

You will need a good level of spoken and written English to enrol on this course.