When learners are looking for the best online Arabic courses, they often end up here.
In case you’re new on this site and don’t know who I am, I’ve been learning Arabic now for almost two whole decades, worked as an Arabic translator and even started a company that teaches Arabic to foreigners.
My main strength is Egyptian but I can understand most major dialects to varying degrees.
Back when I first started out learning Egyptian Arabic, I struggled to find dialect-specific Arabic resources and courses – all of the few that existed back then were for Modern Standard Arabic (or Classical).
The situation for Arabic dialects has only slightly improved since then (mostly because I drew attention to the problem).
Today I want to sum up the best and most popular online Arabic courses (I’ve used almost all of them) and give you my personal opinion as a fluent Arabic learner.
I’ll highlight which dialect/s is/are offered and what you can expect to get from the course.
As you’ll see below, there are some Arabic courses that I’m not particularly fond of, and in some cases I’ve already written extensively on (which I’ve linked to).
Table Of Contents
NOTE: Some of the items listed below aren’t technically “courses” for Arabic. I’ve included a few resources that are important enough to be included. Also, comparing ‘free’ courses to ‘paid’ courses/products is a bit like comparing apples to oranges but I’ve listed some anyway.
I’ll start with the few that I highly recommend.
These are personal favorites of mine and course products that I consistently recommend on this blog. If you were to only take a few quick suggestions from this list, these are the top courses for Arabic.
Dialects: Egyptian, Levantine, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Sudanese, Saudi, Iraqi
Cost: $12.95 monthly | $97 annually | $197 lifetime
Summary: TalkInArabic.com began as a personal project to fill the dialect resource gap and quickly evolved into the largest and fastest growing spoken Arabic dialect resource to date. It’s not actually a “course” per se (so putting it on this list may be a stretch!). Think of it as a resource bank – something for independent Arabic learners, teachers and students to draw on as they progress.
You’ll find a wide variety of lesson topics in 8 major dialects. Lessons range from absolute basics – e.g. ‘how to say hello in Tunisian Arabic’ to very advanced and specific – e.g. ‘getting your plumbing fixed in Jordanian Arabic’. New content is constantly rolled out in different dialects, which usually includes either a video (interactive subtitles recently added), audio podcast, vocab, transcripts and lesson notes.
Lessons are intentionally short and very easy to digest.
Also, for those passionate about humanitarianism, most of TalkInArabic.com’s content is sourced directly from refugee teachers, providing their families with an income.
Read this detailed review of TalkInArabic.com from a student and advanced Arabic speaker.
What you’ll like:
What you won’t like:
LIMITED TIME OFFER: If you add the coupon code MEZZOGUILD at checkout, it’ll instantly shave 20% off the price of any membership option.
Dialect: Egyptian
Cost: Starts from $99.95 (auto-applied discount)
I’ve always enjoyed the Rocket Languages series and the Arabic edition is always one of my top recommendations. Of all the Arabic course options here, Rocket Arabic suits the structured learner most as it’s designed to be followed in a linear progression.
But you’re not obligated to follow their path and you can skip lessons if you want to.
The audio lessons are delivered in both a podcast-style format that’s very easy to follow, and audio dialogues that give you just the Arabic dialogue you need and nothing more (which I love). Rocket Arabic’s course covers all language skills very well, and their inbuilt voice recognition is extremely accurate (it uses Google’s Web Speech technology).
For structured learner types, it’s a great Arabic course.
Read my extensive review of Rocket Arabic.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Join The Guild by clicking here, select Arabic and I’ll send you a unique offer for Rocket Arabic exclusive to my readers only.
Dialects: Modern Standard, Egyptian and Moroccan
Cost: $30 a month
Summary: Glossika is one of the most unique language products available and, in my opinion, one of the very few that uses a natural, research-grounded method. In fact, the Glossika method aligns very closely with how I personally learn languages (including Arabic) and I’ve seen tremendous success doing it.
The basic crux of the Glossika courses (currently MSA, Egyptian and Moroccan) is high repetitive of lexical chunks – in other words, listening over and over to a sequence of sentences at natural speed and repeating them. It is hands down the most effective trainer for listening comprehension.
Arabic grammar is absorbed naturally without tedious memorization of rules. Just lots of listening and repeating!
See my epic Glossika review and interview with its founder.
What I love:
What I’m not a fan of:
Dialects: MSA, Egyptian and Moroccan
Cost: Starts as low as $4 a month
Summary: ArabicPod101 has come a long way in the last two years. It used to be a messy mishmash of very low quality audio and video in various dialects but they’ve since introduced learning ‘pathways’ and greatly improve the quality of their content.
ArabicPod101 teaches using a podcast format (usually two hosts bantering about a particular topic). There are also videos that different topics at different levels.
Like Rocket Arabic and TalkInArabic.com, transcripts and PDF’s are downloadable and high quality for the most part.
There’s a fairly even distribution of dialect material – Moroccan, Egyptian and MSA.
Check out my popular ArabicPod101 review for more info.
What I love about it:
What I don’t like about it:
UNIQUE OFFER: Use the code MEZZOGUILD to save 25% on any of their Arabic course options.
Dialects: Egyptian, Levantine, Iraqi and Modern Standard
Cost: $7.99 a month
Summary: I have to admit (to my own shame) – in the almost decade that I’ve been running this site and reviewing language products, I only recently tried Mango Languages (Arabic).
I honestly can’t believe I didn’t try it earlier.
Mango Languages has implemented what I believe to be one of the most intuitive ‘chunking’ approaches in its course style (very close to my own personal method). It does this by avoiding grammar explanations and instead highlighting lexical chunks in colors to help you learn language patterns.
One of the best features I’ve seen in a language product. Period.
The only problem with Mango is that it’s quite lightweight on its course depth. If they developed advanced courses for Arabic and other languages, I’d be a raging fan.
Why I love it:
What I don’t like about it:
I reviewed Mango Languages here.
Dialects: Levantine, Iraqi and Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts at $12.49 a month
Summary: Easily one of the most surprising online Arabic courses I’ve tried – I was blown away at how comprehensively Transparent Language have covered the Iraqi dialect especially. Oddly, they provide Levantine and Iraqi but no Egyptian.
The system and interface are quite dated and slow which is a real drawback, but if you can look past that, Transparent Language provides a real depth of Arabic content for two spoken dialects and MSA.
Voice recognition comparison is non-existent in Transparent Language. It relies on recording on your voice and showing you your sound wave to compare with the native speaker’s sound wave.
No inbuilt system to automatically compare sounds.
Programs like Rocket Arabic used to do the same thing but recently incorporated Google Web Speech to compare pronunciation. I don’t know why Transparent Language haven’t done this since it’s so easy to implement.
The Transparent Language course has a “Produce it. Say it.” section that literally asks you “Were you right?”.
In other words, no way to automatically detect whether you were correct or not – it relies on your own determination. This is incredibly outdated.
Overall, if you can look past the outdated design and deficient voice recording aspect, Transparent Language Arabic is an outstanding course option (especially for Iraqi learners).
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialects: Levantine, Egyptian and Modern Standard
Cost: $14.95 a month subscription (or $119.95 per level)
Summary: Pimsleur’s a household name that’s been around for many decades and earned its reputation as one of the best courses for Arabic (and other languages). It’s 100% audio and the entire course involves spaced-repetition recall of phrases within specific cultural scenarios.
In terms of just how much you get out of it, I’d say Pimsleur is a good entry point for Arabic but it will only familiarize you with the basics. Treat Pimsleur Arabic as a foundational course and then move on to something more broad.
Pimsleur does not offer any video or written content. It’s purely audio (a good thing).
There’s a Levantine Arabic course (called “Eastern”), Egyptian and Modern Standard Arabic.
Read my extensive and very detailed Pimsleur review for more info.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Egyptian
Cost: ~$30 (much cheaper if you wait for a Udemy discount)
Summary: I’ve actually known Andrew Dempsey since my very first trip to Egypt almost two decades ago. In fact, the first time I encountered him, he was preaching a sermon in Qasr i-Dobara in Cairo — in Arabic! He’s an American with an Egyptian wife and has spent many years in Egypt, including working for the American University of Cairo. One of the first language product investments I ever made was his Egyptian Arabic Vocab Clinic which was absolutely pivotal in my early learning in Egypt.
Andrew’s an all round great guy and an expert in Arabic.
He runs a course for beginners on Udemy that’s extremely affordable given the depth of the knowledge he offers. I highly recommend anything with his name on it.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
I’ve mentioned my personal favorites above but there are loads more quality online course options for Arabic.
Read on for more.
Dialects: Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts at $6.49 a month
Summary: My chief complaint about Rosetta Stone used to be for its high price but it recently switched over to a subscription model and now is unbelievably cheap.
RS is a household name that everyone’s heard about. It tends to get sharp criticism for its method but as I’ve pointed out in the past, people criticize Rosetta Stone because they’re either: a) impatient or b) not willing to allow the method to work for them. Rosetta Stone is all about intuition – it doesn’t give you quick answers or translations.
You infer meaning gradually.
No grammar rules. Just intuitive inference.
It’s one of the most innovative Arabic courses (and all languages) to date, in my opinion. They just need to focus on Arabic spoken dialects and ditch Modern Standard.
But if Modern Standard Arabic is your target, then it’s worth it.
I wrote an extensive and detailed review of Rosetta Stone that you should check out.
What I love about it:
What I don’t like about it:
Dialect: Classical
Cost: Free
Summary: So, I’ve included Madinah Arabic here for those who want to learn Classical (Quranic) Arabic. Despite having a very old design, it’s actually quite comprehensive in its course content and is 100% free to use.
Madinah includes a section to learn the alphabet (all letters are clickable so you can hear how they sound) and then an extensive grammar lessons section.
Overall, an impressive free tool.
However, I should add that this resource is really geared toward people learning to read the Quran and the language is “very fus7a”.
What you’ll like:
What you won’t like:
Dialects: Modern Standard, Classical, Egyptian, Levantine, Moroccan
Cost: Free
For some bizarre reason, Memrise thought it would be a good marketing decision to move its free “community” courses to a site called Decks, while running a premium subscription on the original Memrise site.
It turns out that Memrise ended up scrapping Decks and reverting back to Memrise.
These are 100% free community-added courses in the form of a gamified flashcard deck. You select a language or dialect, then go through a flashcard game of “watering plants”. It’s highly addictive and actually quite effective.
There are lots of different Arabic dialects covered but not all courses are good. Look for ones that include audio and, in my opinion, teach phrases rather than words.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialects: Egyptian, Levantine, Moroccan, Classical and Modern Standard
Cost: Prices vary widely
Summary: I already mentioned Andrew Dempsey above who I can definitely vouch for.
But I thought I’d also just throw it out there that Udemy has literally thousands of independent courses for Arabic to choose from. Far too many for me to go through here but it’s worth checking out to see what you can glean from the list.
My advice is to wait for sale periods when courses go dirt cheap then buy a bunch of them.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialects: Egyptian, Modern Standard and Classical
Price: Starts at $99 a month
Summary: Full disclosure on this one – I only have second-hand info about Arab Academy (but from trusted sources).
I’ve known about Arab Academy almost since I started learning Arabic because teachers and fellow students would often recommend their services to me.
I can’t independently verify the quality of Arab Academy (I don’t like adding recommendations to resources I haven’t tried) but going off what I’ve been told by multiple friends, it’s fantastic and worth it. I would still question the value of Arab Academy over, let’s say, a quality italki teacher however.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Egyptian
Cost: Free
Summary: I really respect the work that Language Transfer has done for Arabic and other languages, putting together courses that have depth at no cost to the listener.
But my opinion of Language Transfer is very much the same as that of Michel Thomas (as it appears to be a close knock-off of the same method). Teacher-controlled, excessive use of English, “don’t try to memorize”, poor pronunciation examples, no natural opportunities to listen or converse. At least it’s free.
It’s a great free resource to help get your head around tricky concepts but as an Arabic language course, I don’t see a lot to gain from Language Transfer.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Moroccan
Cost: Free
Summary: This is a blog by a Moroccan native named Asma that’s been around for a long time and has quite a detailed course structure for Moroccan Arabic – all for free. Half the site is written in English, and the other half is French (in fact, the majority of the site is tailored for a French audience wanting to learn Moroccan).
I’ve listed this here because there’s not a whole out there for Moroccan and this free course content is very helpful for what it is.
What I like about it:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts at $9.99 a month
I actually quite like Mondly and think it has a lot of potential as a language app but the Arabic edition just isn’t good enough yet. This was one of those Arabic courses that I wanted to be able to recommend to people but couldn’t because it’s too lacking.
The most immediate issue for me is the total lack of Arabic script. It uses transliteration (Arabic written using English letters) which is a very bad approach. They should include a quick reading lesson to cover the Arabic alphabet and then only use it.
I like that Mondly doesn’t just drill grammar and really gets you focused on learning Arabic phrases.
A potentially quality Arabic course but just not quite there yet (for the record, I did like it for other languages).
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Read this Mondly review.
There are some online Arabic courses that just don’t cut it, in my opinion.
These are well-known course products that are liked by some people but I’ve found significant issues when reviewing them. I’ve listed them here.
Dialects: Egyptian and Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts from $11.99
Summary: I reviewed Michel Thomas Arabic extensively a short while back and ended up with almost nothing positive to say about the course (both levels). The Michel Thomas method is, in my opinion, full of holes and defies current research conclusions in SLA.
The basic premise of Michel Thomas Arabic is that you relax like a client in a psychologist’s chair, and let the teacher control your learning. You’re told “never to try to learn”, no memorization, no outside practice, no student responsibility.
Michel Thomas teachers guide students through correcting their every mistake on the spot.
There’s no listening comprehension training and no natural conversation opportunities during sessions.
Yet, for some bizarre reason, MT has a cult following of diehard fans (I recently shared my theory on why this is).
Overall, Michel Thomas might be a useful primer but I would never recommend this course to anybody.
Read my detailed and highly controversial Michel Thomas review for more info.
What I liked:
What I didn’t like:
Dialect: Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Free
Summary: Duolingo has become a staple for many language learners – a completely free household name to rival established companies like Rosetta Stone.
It recently released its Arabic course for free to the public to the delight of many.
I personally have never liked Duolingo and I think it’s an overrated, infantile game that offers little value other than being an addictive distraction and procrastination from real learning. People go through entire courses on the Duolingo platform and come away with nothing but a cartoon trophy.
Duolingo Arabic offers Modern Standard Arabic and seems to do a fairly accurate job in terms of grammar (I haven’t encountered any errors yet in the translations personally).
It might serve you well to get you acquainted but there are better ways to spend your study time.
Read more about why I’m not a fan of Duolingo for more info.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts at $5.83 a month
Summary: The best way I can describe Busuu Arabic is that it’s a gorgeous interface and design with amazing potential yet spoiled by deficient content. The Arabic course content is unfortunately not only MSA, but awkwardly slow and unnatural MSA.
The dialogue exercises are fill-in-the-blanks (you drop the missing word into a space as you listen to the dialogue). Vocab is introduced through pictures in a way similar to what you see in Rosetta Stone, but the problem with Busuu is the stock images they use are terrible and unnecessarily confusing.
On the plus side, Busuu has some of the best higher level lesson topics I’ve seen in any course.
Overall, I think Busuu could be a phenomenal platform if they focused on spoken dialects, used natural dialogue and ditched the stock images.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
Dialect: Modern Standard Arabic
Cost: Starts from $25
Summary: It comes as no surprise to my readers that I never liked Living Language Arabic when I reviewed it several years ago. I’m including it on this list because it is one of the big names and most popular courses for Arabic (plus I get asked about it from time to time).
I found Living Language Arabic to be bland, incorrectly levelled and just a very uninspiring grammar-heavy course.
The dialect is Modern Standard Arabic.
Read my extensive review of Living Language Arabic.
What I liked:
What I didn’t like:
Dialects: Saudi, Modern Standard and Levantine
Cost: Free
Summary: FSI (Foreign Service Institute) is a government entity that trains diplomats and government officials in foreign languages. It offers several Arabic dialect courses that are all currently available online to download for free (includes audio).
The problem with the FSI material is that it’s literally been around for almost a century.
It’s old. Archaic, in fact.
So although you can download some comprehensive, detailed Arabic courses for free with audio, be aware that the material is literally photocopied booklets that were typed up on typewriters making it almost illegible.
If you’re patient, there’s some good value in the FSI courses but it’s so dated that I personally wouldn’t bother.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
I think I’ve covered just about every available online Arabic course in this post.
Of course, it needs to be said that you can have the greatest resource in the world and still not learn effectively with it.
It all really comes down to your own motivation, persistence and learning style as to whether or not a good (or bad) resource teaches you anything substantial.
I also believe that no online course for Arabic comes close to regular practice with native speakers (ideally in person or if not, with a partner on a service like italki).
Know of an Arabic course that I didn’t mention?
Share it below in the comment section.
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