Most of this blog focuses on how to learn ancient, Quranic Arabic. That’s because as a Muslim this is your first, most important goal – to understand what the Quran says. However, over the last couple of years of sharing with people ideas on how to speed up the path to this goal, I’ve received dozens – maybe hundreds – of requests of how to learn Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).

To the most part, I’ve avoided the question. That’s partly because I keep re-focusing people towards their primary goal (Quranic Arabic) and partly because I haven’t seen a particularly effective method of learning Modern Standard Arabic that I can easily recommend. (Okay, I have come across a couple of phenomenal teachers, including Professor Muhammad Mustafa who teaches in Paris, and other teachers in Egypt – but none that I could easily recommend to people in the UK). Trust me when I say, I’m saving you a lot of hassle by not recommending the SOAS diploma and the accompanying, infamous ‘Green Books.’

Recently a friend of mine, Arslan, who also studied Arabic at SOAS showed me his big project. It’s awesome, and it solves the problem of wanting to learn Modern Arabic in an effective immersion environment. Click here to enrol in it, if you’re in London. I know a couple of the teachers and they’re great!

Immersion

If you want to learn a new language, you need to pick up a lot of vocabulary. The slow, lame way of doing this is to sit there with a really big vocabulary list and try to memorise all the words. The quick, easy way is to immerse yourself totally in an environment where everyone is speaking the language. I’m currently learning Spanish using the immersion process. I have NEVER sat down to learn a vocabulary list, but I’m quite fluent in Spanish in most everyday situations. Of course, you can’t do that with Quranic Arabic… unless you have a time machine.

However, with MSA you can… but not in the Arab world. If you want to be in an environment of people speaking MSA, you basically need to be in a classroom where people, (especially the teacher) speak it. If you go to the Arab world, most people will understand MSA but will speak to you in a local dialect. This is pretty much useless to you if your objective is to learn MSA. Once you know MSA, you’ll be able to pick up the dialect after a few months – depending on which country you’re in.

This course gives you a strong element of immersion, as far as possible, to help you pick up vocabulary and get you using it… BUT, it also teaches Arabic grammar in a structured way. That way, you get the best of both worlds.

Structure

What I love most about this course is the simple, effective structure. There are 2 lessons per week – 3 hours per week total. In one month you cover 1 level. There are 5 basic levels, 5 intermediate and 5 advanced levels, so you could complete the entire course in 15 months – a year and a bit.

Ever see a Woody Allen movie? My favourite quote of his is “80% of success is just showing up”.

If you take this course, to be successful, all you need to do is basically show up for class. The teachers will take care of the rest. If you’re starting from scratch (which you’re probably not), in 5 months time, you’d be ready to go to an Arab country and get around with basic introductory conversations, ordering food and stuff like that.

In another 5 months, you’re Arabic would be quite advanced – about GCSE level. In fact, they give you the option of actually taking GCSE Arabic at that point. When you get to that level, if all you do is converse in MSA with Arabs, you could probably get away with no further study. It depends on how precise you want your language to get. I’m guessing by the time you get to this point, you’ll probably just want to go the whole 9 yards – stay in class for another 5 months and get your A-Level in Arabic.

Will you be able to read the Quran and understand it at that point?

Yes, and no. You’ll still lack Quranic vocabulary, but you won’t require further Arabic study. At this point, you could just go through a word-for-word translation of the Quran, learn the extra vocab, one page at a time, and get reading. Basically, using the method I recommend, the day after you finish this course, you’d be able to start reading the Quran with understanding, 1 page at a time – you’d just have to learn a few words of  Quranic vocabulary before reading each page, which is very easy to do. In fact, here is my web-class that walk you through what to do then – check out the “How To Jump from 70% to 100% of Quranic Arabic” video)

So, again, if understanding the Quran is your primary goal, learning the everyday MSA vocabulary isn’t the quickest way to do it. However, all Arabic grammar is the same – modern or classical. So, everything you do to learn Arabic will help, not hurt, your goal of understanding the Quran.

What you will be able to do at that point is kind of cool though. You’ll have a lot of vocabulary that’s not in the Quran but that you might find in hadith, and will certainly find if you listen to Islamic lectures in Arabic. You’ll also be able to do something that I can no longer do – speak to people in MSA. I can read the Quran with understanding, but I haven’t spoken MSA in a long time. If I was in London, I’d probably join you on this course to refresh the everyday Arabic that I lost.

So, in case you haven’t already, enrol in the Alif Arabic Institute course by clicking here!