Research Guides: Learning Arabic: Websites

Useful Websites

Keyboards

Online Dictionaries

Aratools- English <> Arabic search function, breaks word down to root.
Ejtaal- Browse digitized pages of the Hans Wehr dictionary. Is less useable than a print version due to single page movement, however is more portable.
WordReference- English <> Arabic search function.
Fuzzy Arabic Dictionary- Look up words without needing to spell correctly.
Mo3jam- user-generated dictionary of colloquial Arabic.

Lessons

Aljazeera Learning Arabic- Arabic lessons for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.
Khallina- an open source tool that helps teachers and independent learners of Arabic explore Arab culture. This website contains Cultural Modules suitable for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners, on a variety of subject matters including: music, food, politics, humor, gender issues, and much more.

Videos

Aswaat Arabiyya- useful for language comprehension. Videos are arranged by level of study and include options to slow play. Requires updated Flash and may need frequent browser refreshing.
The Arabic Student- learn dialect phrases from videos in blog and Youtube entries.
BBC Arabic- (intermediate and advanced) helpful for expanding vocabulary relevant to current events.
CultureTalk- videos are sorted by dialect and subjects. Intended to reflect "authentic speech" including borrowed words and phrases from English. Transcripts and translation are provided, useful for all levels.
Arabic DVDs- in Advanced Catalog, search for "Arabic" as language and "Video/Film" as material type.

Audio

Arabic Phone Conversations- sorted by dialect, level, and topic. Includes conversation transcripts.
See Music on Guide for Cultural Resources for Near Eastern Studies.

Advanced

Arabic Language Bank- reference for Arabic academic writing with ready-made models of sentences, phrases, and language structures

Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library
Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library is the first full-text searchable digital library of early printed books in Arabic script. Covering religious literature, law, science, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, medicine, geography, travel, history, chronicles, and literature, and including European translations of Arabic works and Arabic translations of European books, it exemplifies the long exchange of ideas and learning between Europe and the Arabic-speaking world.
Early Western Korans (on BRC)
This remarkable collection demonstrates the impact of the holy book of Islam in Europe. Long before printing with movable type became common practice in the Islamic world, Korans had been printed in Arabic type in several European cities. The collection includes Korans and Koran translations, printed between 1537 and 1857, and is of interest to book historians, theologians, philologists, and scholars of Islamic Studies alike.