Levantine Dialect Arabic

1. Import into Anki

Getting your deck into Anki takes about a minute. Your download link is in the receipt email from Lemon Squeezy, the payment service we use. It usually arrives within a few minutes.

Deck files are large, 130 MB or more depending on the deck, so use Wi-Fi when you download on a phone or tablet.

Another way: import the deck on a computer first, then sync it to your phone with a free AnkiWeb account. Your phone still needs the Anki app: AnkiDroid on Android or AnkiMobile on iPhone and iPad. The first sync can take a while because of the audio, so wait for it to finish.

Levantine Arabic by Eidetic appears in your deck list with four sub-decks: Survival Arabic (A1), Conversational (A2), Fluency (B1) and Advanced (B2). The audio and the tags are already in place, so you can start studying right away.

2. Recommended settings

Anki's defaults work, but these adjustments will give you better results with this deck:

• New cards per day: 10-15. A small daily number leaves room for the variant notes you will want to read.
• Maximum reviews per day: 200. The default of 200 is fine. If your daily reviews regularly exceed 150, reduce new cards for a few days.
• Learning steps: 1m 10m. Anki's default. Leave it.

To change these: click the gear icon next to the deck name, then "Options."

3. How the three card types work

Say you have just learned يسلمو (yisalmu), 'thanks'. You will meet it three ways: reading it and recalling 'thanks' (Recognition), recalling it from 'thanks' (Production), and filling it into a gap in a sentence (Cloze).

The deck holds 1,704 entries, which become 5,112 cards, and 199 of the entries are tagged verbs. Every entry has transliteration and an example sentence. About 30% carry a cultural note, and many carry a dialect variants note that says where Lebanese, Jordanian or Palestinian Arabic differs from the Damascus base, so you recognize the other form when you hear it.

Feeling overwhelmed? Suspend the Production cards for the first week. Focus on Recognition and Cloze. Add Production back once your daily reviews feel manageable. To suspend: select cards in the browser, right-click, "Toggle Suspend."

4. Where to start

The 42 themes are numbered by level: 1.1 to 1.12 in Survival Arabic (A1), 2.1 to 2.13 in Conversational (A2), 3.1 to 3.12 in Fluency (B1) and 4.1 to 4.5 in Advanced (B2). Each entry carries a theme tag, for example theme:2.5_Levantine_Hospitality.

• Connecting with family. Begin with First Conversations, Family & Relationships, Levantine Kitchen & Food and Levantine Hospitality. Read the cultural notes as well. The one on Arabic coffee, for example, says that refusing coffee when it is offered is considered impolite.
• Reconnecting with your roots. You probably understand more than you can say. Test yourself in Conversational (A2), suspend the cards that feel easy, and spend your time on the rest. Our guide to choosing a dialect describes many learners in your position.
• Traveling in the Levant. Take Getting Around, At the Market & Supermarket, At the Pharmacy and Phone WiFi & Internet first, all in Survival Arabic (A1). The deck teaches Damascus Syrian, and variant notes cover Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian where the dialects split.
• Learning for music and TV. Our dialect guide names Egyptian and Levantine as the two best dialects for Arabic songs and shows. Levantine Music & Culture is theme 3.10, in Fluency (B1).

What is inside Levantine Arabic

1,704 entries, 5,112 cards, each entry with transliteration, an example sentence and audio.

• Four level sub-decks. Survival Arabic (A1) holds about 1,400 cards, Conversational (A2) about 1,750, Fluency (B1) about 1,370 and Advanced (B2) 594. The A1 to B2 levels are our own estimate of when a learner needs each word, not an official CEFR placement.
• 199 essential verbs. Tagged, so you can drill them separately.
• Damascus Syrian as the base. It is the most widely understood Levantine variety.
• Variant notes. They flag where Lebanese, Jordanian or Palestinian Arabic goes its own way.

One Levantine entry, field by field

The hummus entry shows how much a single note holds.

• Arabic and transliteration. حمص and ḥummuṣ, a masculine noun.
• English. 'Hummus.'
• Example sentence. ما بيكمل الأكل بدون صحن حمص means 'The meal isn't complete without a plate of hummus.'
• Cultural note. Hummus is a source of fierce national pride across the Levant. Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians all claim it as their own.

Two more Levantine entries

A thank-you and a cup of coffee, with the notes that come with them.

• يسلمو (yisalmu). 'Thanks (casual, may your hands be safe).' The note says it is short for يسلمو إيديك, a distinctly Levantine thank-you, especially when someone has prepared food, and more heartfelt than شكراً.
• أهوة عربية (ʾahwe ʿarabiyye). 'Arabic coffee', in the Levantine Hospitality theme. The variants note says that in Lebanon and Syria قهوة (ʾahwe) is standard, and that in Jordan the default is قهوة عربية سادة, plain, without sugar.

Four countries, one grammar

Levantine Arabic is not one dialect. It is four countries that share a grammar and disagree on the details. Our guide's example: 'now' is هلأ in Lebanon, هلق in Syria and هسا in Jordan. The deck gives the whole of this a theme, Dialect Across the Levant, in Advanced (B2).

• Pick a base. The deck gives you Damascus Syrian, the most widely understood Levantine variety. Study it as your base and let the variant notes teach you the rest.
• Hospitality is vocabulary. A whole theme, Levantine Hospitality, is built around offering and accepting. The coffee entry above is part of it.
• Celebrations are vocabulary too. Celebrations Weddings & Traditions is its own theme, and it is where the dabke entry lives.

Levantine words vs the textbook

A course in Modern Standard Arabic and a conversation in Amman or Beirut use different everyday words. These are separate words, not accent differences.

• I want. أريد (uridu) in MSA. بدي (biddi) in Levantine.
• What. ماذا (madha) in MSA. شو (shu) in Levantine.
• Good, fine. جيد (jayyid) in MSA. منيح (mnih) in Levantine.

Common questions about Levantine Arabic

Short answers from our dialect-choice guide.

• Who learns Levantine Arabic? Many learners are marrying into Levantine families. Others belong to the Levantine diaspora in Germany, across Europe, the US and Canada, and want to reclaim the language their parents or grandparents spoke.
• Will I understand other Arabic dialects? To a significant degree. Arabic dialects share a large part of their core vocabulary and the same script. Speakers still prefer it when you use theirs, so a base dialect and the variant notes both matter.
• Should I learn MSA first? Only if your goal is reading, studying the Quran or following the news. If you want to speak with people and understand them, go straight to the dialect.

Setting a Levantine pace

Your daily 10 to 15 new cards are about 3 to 5 new words, because each word makes three cards. Survival Arabic (A1) holds about 1,400 cards, so expect roughly 95 to 140 days of new cards there. Set aside one short session for the 199 tagged verbs once the first themes feel comfortable, and read the variant notes whenever a Lebanese, Jordanian or Palestinian form catches your eye.

Practice and reading, Levantine

Everything below is free. Use it to try more Levantine before you study, or to share the deck with someone in your family.

• Free browser preview. Try 20 Levantine cards, audio included, without downloading anything.
• Can You Keep Up with Jordanian Street Talk? A 10-question quiz on Ammani Arabic.
• Which Arabic Dialect Should I Learn? Includes a section on who Levantine is right for.
• Learn Arabic. The three dialect decks and the medical deck, compared.

The "Again" button is your friend

When Anki shows you a card and you don't know the answer, hit Again. Not "Hard." Not "Good." Again.

Spaced repetition works best when you're honest about what you don't know. Cards you mark "Again" come back sooner. Cards you know well space out further. The algorithm adjusts to you. Trust it.

Audio on every card

Every word card has professional audio. On desktop, audio plays automatically when the card appears. On mobile, tap the speaker icon.

Every entry has audio, in a male and a female voice, and transliteration beside the Arabic. At the start, use all three layers in order: listen, read the romanized form, then look at the Arabic letters. Letters such as ح and ع have no English match and romanized text cannot show the difference, so the audio is how you learn them.

Lifetime updates

Your purchase includes free updates for the life of the product. When we add new cards, fix audio, or improve translations, you can re-download the latest version from Lemon Squeezy at no extra cost.

When we release a new version, it appears on your original Lemon Squeezy download link; download it again to get it.

Need help?

Reply to any Eidetic email or reach out at hello@eidetic.cards. We read everything and respond fast.