Tell us where you are
A three-minute placement quiz puts you on the right shelf. Total beginner, rusty intermediate, or somewhere in between.
Learn the Arabic
people actually
speak in Palestine.
This is the Arabic of kitchens, bus stops, and corner shops. Not the formal kind you hear on the news. Ten-minute lessons, audio first, set where the language really lives.
Coming soon to iPhone and Android. We’ll email you the day it lands.
- Free to download
- iOS 16+ · Android 10+
- Works offline
AUDIO FIRST 🎧
OFFLINE READY
How it works
Three steps. Sa7teen.
10 minutes, every day
Bite-sized lessons. Audio first. Hands-free if you want.
Use it that afternoon
Order coffee. Greet your neighbor. Catch a phrase in a song. Real situations from day one, not month six.
The method
Built on a half-century of Palestinian linguistics.
Long before “dialect Arabic” was a category in any textbook, these were the sounds diplomats, journalists, and curious in-laws picked up first. We kept that tradition. Only the audio is new.
Listen, then speak
Every word reaches your ear before it reaches your eye. Five-second clips, played back until they stick. That's the old Pimsleur idea, retuned for a Palestinian rhythm.
Transliteration that respects you
A phonetic system for the sounds the script keeps hidden. The ' in 'ayn. The H in Halaal. The q that quietly goes missing in Jerusalem. And when you want the Arabic letters themselves, ج and ح are waiting right beside it.
Culture as curriculum
Every unit has an address: a fish market in Yafa, a café in Ramallah, the carpentry shop down your in-laws' alley. Learn the words and you've half-learned the place they belong to.
Made for mobile
Built for five spare minutes and a pair of headphones. A lesson fits a phone and a bus seat. Nothing to install, no laptop, no homework to hand in. Press play, say back what you hear, and that's the lesson.
The tasting menu
Ten phrases
you’ll use
this week.
Not “the cat sat on the mat.” Not “where is the library.” These are the ones you reach for first: greeting a neighbor, talking a vendor down on a watermelon, thanking the stranger who pointed you toward the bus in Akka.
#1
mar7aba
مرحبا
hello
#2
keef 7aalak?
كيف حالك؟
how are you?
#3
shukran
شكراً
thank you
#4
Sabaa7 il-kheer
صباح الخير
good morning
#5
yalla
يلا
let's go
#6
keef?
كيف؟
how?
#7
ween?
وين؟
where?
#8
'eesh ismak?
إيش اسمك؟
what's your name?
#9
3an jadd
عن جدّ
really
#10
mish heek?
مش هيك؟
isn't it so?
Culture first
You’ll learn the words and the worlds they live in.
Words don’t stick in a vacuum. Every unit sits inside a real Palestinian dish, place, or custom, because that’s where the vocabulary belongs. Learning vegetables? You’re cooking maqlooba. Numbers? You’re haggling in a market. Family words? You’re three chairs deep at someone’s wedding.
كنافة نابلسية
knaafa Naabulsiyya
Knafeh, Nablus-style
مقلوبة
maqlooba
Upside-down rice
مسخّن
musakhkhan
Sumac chicken on bread
قهوة سادة
qahwa saada
Black cardamom coffee
Free guides
Bookmarkable answers to every Palestinian Arabic question.
PRONUNCIATION
Sun letters: when the l in il- disappears
Why 'the sun' comes out ish-shams and not il-shams, and how to tell which letters swallow the l in il-.
4 min read · 21 audio clips
PRONUNCIATION
Simplified Romanization: An English-Friendly Key
How Tfaddalu spells Arabic in plain English letters. The system every guide on the site uses, with a few rules to read by.
3 min read · 5 audio clips
GRAMMAR
Palestinian Arabic vs MSA: What's the Difference?
Modern Standard Arabic is what textbooks teach. Palestinian Arabic is what people actually speak. The key differences, and which one to learn first.
5 min read · 50 audio clips
Honest answers
The questions everyone asks first.
No dodges. If a question reaches us more than twice, it ends up on this list.
Will this help me read Arabic?
Eventually, yes. From your first lesson the Arabic script sits next to the transliteration, so you can lean on whichever you want. We don't formally drill the alphabet until Unit 4, but the letter shapes start sinking in from your very first knafeh order.
Do I need to know the alphabet first?
No. You can start from zero. Words reach you as audio first, then as a transliteration built to match how Palestinians really say them. The script comes in once you're ready for it.
How is this different from Duolingo?
Duolingo's Arabic course teaches Modern Standard, the formal Arabic of news anchors and textbooks. Nobody speaks that at home. We teach the spoken dialect of Yafa, Ramallah, Akka, and Bethlehem: audio first, real conversations, and no gems to hoard.
Is the dialect understood outside Palestine?
Yes. Palestinian Arabic is Levantine, a close cousin of what's spoken in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Use it in Beirut, Amman, or Damascus and people follow you fine. Go as far as Egypt or the Gulf and you'll still get by, with a little adjustment.
How long until I can have a basic conversation?
Six to eight weeks, at ten minutes a day. Greetings, ordering food, talking about family, asking directions, getting through a short phone call. Month one is small exchanges; by month two you're in real back-and-forth conversations, mistakes and all, with people happy to forgive them.
Is there audio?
Yes, on every word and every line. Each clip is voiced in the spoken Palestinian dialect, so you hear how a phrase actually sounds before you ever read it.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Download a lesson once and it's yours on a plane, on the metro, anywhere the signal gives out (which happens plenty in the region itself). Your streak and review queue catch up the next time you're back online.
Is my progress synced across devices?
Yes. Sign in on a phone, a tablet, or the web, and your streak, downloaded lessons, and review queue all come with you. You can switch devices mid-sentence if you want.
Yalla. Be first
in line.
Leave your email. We’ll write to you the day the first lesson goes live.
Free to download · iPhone (iOS 16+) and Android (10+) · Works offline once a lesson is downloaded.
