About

About this site

This website was launched in July 2007, originally as a simple archive for all of my personal vocabulary lists. I gradually expanded it to include more resources, including grammar information that I thought would be helpful to others.

The vocabulary lists on this site have more standard words in the "standard" column, and more colloquial words in the 3ammiyya column, even though these words exist on a continuum and many are not limited to only standard or only colloquial Arabic.

The media vocabulary lists don't include an 3ammiyya column, since these words are generally the same in 3ammiyya, just pronounced a bit more colloquially. The "technology" list also doesn't include an 3ammiyya column, as people use English words so often in this context.

The transliteration system I use is based on that used in Hans Wehr, with a few modifications:

ث	= t	ح	= H	خ	= x	ذ	= d
ش	= š	ص	= S	ض	= D	ط	= T
ظ	= Z	ع	= 3	غ	= ġ	ء	= '

For doubled letters (ones with a shadda), I just wrote the letter twice. The ž is the French "j" (pronounced like the g in "mirage"), used in some colloquial loan words. For fusHa words that are also used in 3ammiyya, I just put a '' in the "colloquial" column to indicate that the word is the same in both. The abbreviations "s.o." and "s.t." stand for "someone" and "something," respectively.

Verbs list the third-person masculine past-tense conjugation, then after a dash the present-tense conjugation, then the verbal noun (مصدر) in parentheses. Each noun includes the plural form; the singular is listed first, then the plural after a ج in parentheses.

I've done my best to make sure everything on this site is accurate and useful; however, if you see any errors or have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know.

Credit for the website design goes to Luka Cvrk at Solucija.

About me

I began studying Arabic in 2005. I spent my first year learning both standard and Egyptian Arabic intensively at the American University in Cairo. After that, I studied standard Arabic for a year at the University of Texas at Austin, followed by a summer studying standard and Jordanian Arabic at the University of Jordan. Since then, I've been continuing to learn Arabic on my own, mainly focusing on Egyptian Arabic.

You can contact me here.