Language Resources

Resources Available at Memorial Library

Snow, James A. Levantine Arabic: Introduction to Pronunciation. Washington, DC: Foreign Service Institute, 1971. This book was prepared at the Foreign Service Institute Arabic Language and Area School in Beirut. It provides a written program to introduce the sounds and pronunciations in Levantine Arabic to beginners.

Bruweleit, Stefan. Aspect, Tense and Action in the Arabic Dialect of Beirut. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2015. This resource is for more advanced learners of Lebanese Arabic. It is an analysis of verb tenses.

Frayha, Anis. Modern Lebanese Proverbs. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1953. This resource is probably for a more advanced learner of Lebanese Arabic. It discusses and provides translations for common Lebanese Proverbs.

Books for Purchase

Dolola Publishing offers children’s books written in Lebanese Dialect. Some of the books even have musical recordings of lullabies and nursery rhymes.

Najem, Hiba. Lebanese Arabic phrasebook. Vol. 1. [Place of publication not identified]: Hiba Najem, 2014. This book is written by the YouTuber that created the channel Learning Lebanese Arabic with Hiba. It has lots of phrases and vocabulary terms for beginners such as colors, days, numbers, introductions and more.

Staples, J.K. Learn Lebanese Arabic in 30 Minutes. Oklahoma City : Book Branch, 2017. This book is for beginners and includes not only words and phrases but also language learning exercises.

Mentors

iTalki

In my search for a mentor, I only used iTalki. Prof. Adoela Agoke recommended it early on and I found success right away. In using iTalki, I spent a couple hours looking at the different tutor profiles. In my search, I specifically narrowed my search to Levantine Arabic from a tutor living in Lebanon who taught topics related to family. I felt like this search best captured my goals. After that, I scheduled a trial lesson with my mentor. At the 30 minute trial lesson, I explained my goals and the student-led approach of this class. That mentor, Pia, was very helpful and willing to adapt the lesson to meet my needs.

Websites and Online Resources

Keefak the App This app is a free app available on Andriod and iPhones. It has introductory information on introductions, family, shopping, food, counting and days of the week. It has recorded conversations that are great for practicing listening and pronounciation. It also has short quizzes which are great for quizzing yourself. The app isn’t perfect. There are some typos and the translations are sometimes not perfect, but overall its a great way to practice listening and learning new vocab in the beginning.

Learn Lebanese Arabic This website is run by Hiba Najem, who created the YouTube channel “Learn Lebanese Arabic with Hiba” and auhtor of “Lebanese Arabic Phrasebook.” The website shows all of Hiba’s YouTube videos along with a written transcript of the lesson below the video.

Talk in Arabic This is a website that teaches the Levantive dialect of Arabic. It has a fee of $12.95/month or $95.40/year, but sme of the content is available for free. It includes videos, PDFs and MP3 files to support learners from Beginner to Advanced.

Learn Arabic with Angela This is a website run by the YouTuber who created Learn Spoken Levantine Lebanese Arabic. This website offers a “self-paced program” for learning Lebanese Arabic for a fee, but her videos are free of charge on YouTube.

Player FM This website offers a list of Lebanese Podcasts. SOme of the podcasts are in English and/or French, but others are in Lebanese Arabic. I recommend Alternative Frequencies which is bilingual, The Banadoura Podcast which is fully in Lebanese Arabic and Sarde after Dinner which is also fully in Lebanese Arabic.