Arabic Learning Resources > Levantine Arabic Resources
Levantine Arabic is the dialect family spoken by over 30 million people in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Jordan. Linguists split it into a northern branch, covering Syrian and Lebanese speech, and a southern branch, covering Jordanian and Palestinian speech, but the four varieties form one continuum: a shopkeeper in Beirut and a taxi driver in Amman can chat without either one switching languages. As everywhere in the Arab world, people use the dialect for daily conversation and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for writing and formal speech.
The whole family shares the features learners come to recognize as Levantine. The present tense takes a b- prefix, so "I write" comes out as "baktob." In the big cities the classical qaf (ق) is pronounced as a glottal stop, turning "qalb" (heart) into "alb." Much of the everyday vocabulary is also common to all four countries: "shu" (what), "ktir" (a lot), and "hala'" (now) will serve you from Damascus to Amman.
Levantine is one of the most popular dialect choices for learners. Decades of Syrian television drama and Lebanese music mean it is understood far beyond the Levant itself, and it has one of the largest pools of textbooks and courses of any dialect after Egyptian. It also sits noticeably closer to MSA than the Maghrebi dialects of North Africa, so time spent on either one reinforces the other.
Resources by dialect
The tables below list the courses, books, dictionaries, and channels we recommend for each variety of Levantine Arabic. Because the varieties overlap so much, it is worth scanning all four tables whichever one you settle on; several of the best resources, such as "Shou fi ma fi?" and the free government courses on Live Lingua, cover more than one country.
Jordanian Arabic
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Hakini Arabi: Palestinian and Jordanian Colloquial | A course centered around the spoken Arabic in Jordan and Palestine. |
| The 101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic: Jordan & Palestine | An excellent book with detailed definitions and sample sentences. Includes audio. |
| My American Neighbor | A Comedy TV show in the Jordanian dialect. |
| Spoken Arabic Dictionary, Diwan Baladna | An excellent resource for speaking Jordanian Dialect. You must be able to read Arabic to use this book |
| CGE Jordan Institute | A Youtube channel that teaches Arabic so you can get around in Jordan. Mainly focuses on spoken Arabic. |
| Live Lingua Jordanian | Excellent course that teaches Jordanian dialect |
| italki Arabic | Connect with Arabic tutors and practice your conversational skills. |
| Talk In Arabic | A service that teaches you how to speak in Arabic dialects. |
| Qasid Online | An online course centered around teaching Jordanian Arabic. The course consists of a structured plan with one on one conversations. |
| Roya TV | TV news channel in Jordanian dialect. Be sure to check out their comedy and drama channels on youtube. |
| Jordanian Sesame Street | Sesame street in the Jordanian dialect. |
| Female Show | A popular Comedy series in the Jordanian dialect. It is a little challenging for beginners but worth watching. |
Lebanese Arabic
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Lebanese Arabic Phrasebook | A Lebanese Arabic phrasebook with fun games and exercises to solidify your understanding of the dialect. |
| Conversational Arabic Quick and Easy | A great book for conversations in the Lebanese dialect. This book does not contain Arabic letters though. |
| Shou fi ma fi? | A book explaining the Lebanese and Syrian dialect with audio samples. |
Learn Lebanese Arabic with Hiba Najem | Youtube channel teaching spoken Lebanese Arabic. |
| italki Arabic | Connect with Arabic tutors and practice your conversational skills. |
| Talk In Arabic | A service that teaches you how to speak in Arabic dialects. |
| Living Arabic | Online dictionary for Lebanese Arabic. Offers mobile apps. |
| Colloquial Arabic (Levantine) | A course for Lebanese Arabic. All Arabic words are written in English. |
Palestinian Arabic
| Resources | Description |
|---|---|
| The 101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic: Jordan & Palestine | An excellent book with detailed definitions and sample sentences. Includes audio. |
| Colloquial Palestinian Arabic | Excellent book to learn Palestinian Arabic. The book assumes you have a firm understanding of Fusha. |
| Hakini Arabi: Palestinian and Jordanian Colloquial | A course centered around the spoken Arabic in Jordan and Palestine. |
| Live Lingua Levantine | Based on Palestinians living in Lebanon. Courses from Defense Institute and Foreign Service Institute that include an eBook and accompanying audio. |
| Learn Arabic with Maha | A youtube channel that teaches Palestinian Arabic |
| italki Arabic | Connect with Arabic tutors and practice your conversational skills. |
| Speaking Arabic: A Course in Conversational Eastern Arabic | A full, complete course designed for self studying the language. You learn over 2500 vocabulary words. It is quite pricey but comes with 4 books and 5 audio CDs. We highly recommend this course. Definitely check second hand resources to find it significantly cheaper. The only downside is that the book uses transliterations rather than Arabic script. |
| Talk In Arabic | A service that teaches you how to speak in Arabic dialects |
| Palestinian History | Website contains oral history of Palestinians. You can find many videos in the Palestinian dialect. |
| The Olive Tree Dictionary: A Transliterated Dictionary | An excellent dictionary to help you learn Palestinian Arabic. |
Syrian Arabic
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Shou fi ma fi? | A book explaining the Lebanese and Syrian dialect with audio samples. |
| Syrian Mango Languages | Course that focuses on conversations in Syrian Dialect. |
| Live Lingua Syrian | Based on Syrian dialect. Courses from Defense Institute and Foreign Service Institute that include an eBook and accompanying audio. |
| Pimsleur Eastern Arabic | Conversational practice with spaced repetition technique of listening and repeating audio. Based on Syrian Arabic. |
| italki Arabic | Connect with Arabic tutors and practice your conversational skills. |
| Talk In Arabic | A service that teaches you how to speak in Arabic dialects. |
| Living Arabic | Online dictionary for Syrian Arabic. Offers mobile apps. |
| Playaling | A free service that allows you to view videos of people speaking Arabic. You can filter by difficulty. |
| SyrianArabic.com | A website dedicated to teaching Syrian Arabic |
| A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic | Excellent dictionary to help you learn Syrian Arabic |
Frequently asked questions
Which Levantine dialect should I pick?
Pick the variety spoken by the people you will actually talk to; family ties, a job posting, or a heritage connection beats any other criterion. If nothing points you to one country, Syrian and Lebanese offer the deepest pools of media to learn from, while Jordanian benefits from Amman being a hub for Arabic study programs and tutors. The differences are small enough that whichever variety you learn transfers to the other three with little effort.
Can Levantine speakers understand Egyptian Arabic?
Yes. Decades of Egyptian films and music made Egyptian Arabic familiar across the whole Arab world, so Levantine speakers follow it with ease. The reverse also works well: Syrian drama and Lebanese pop have given Levantine a similar reach, and Egyptians generally understand it without trouble. Egyptian and Levantine are the two most widely understood dialect families, which is a large part of why most learners choose one of them.
Is Levantine Arabic close to MSA?
Closer than the Maghrebi dialects of North Africa, but still a real step away. Levantine shares most of its core vocabulary with Modern Standard Arabic, which is why it is often recommended to learners who already have MSA. The grammar is simpler, though: case endings are gone, the present tense takes a b- prefix, and urban speakers pronounce the classical qaf as a glottal stop. MSA alone will not carry a street conversation in Beirut or Amman, but an MSA foundation makes Levantine much faster to pick up.
How different are Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Jordanian Arabic?
They form one dialect continuum, usually split into a northern branch (Syrian and Lebanese) and a southern branch (Jordanian and Palestinian). The differences show up in accent and intonation, a handful of everyday words, and how the qaf is pronounced; many Jordanian men use a hard g where a Beirut speaker uses a glottal stop, for example. Speakers from all four countries converse freely with each other, and learners can mix resources from any of them without confusion.
Explore each Levantine dialect
- Jordanian Arabic, our dedicated guide to the dialect spoken in Amman and across Jordan
- Lebanese Arabic resources, for the dialect of Beirut, carried worldwide by Lebanese music and television
- Palestinian Arabic resources, for the southern Levantine variety closest to Jordanian
- Syrian Arabic resources, for the Damascus speech that pan-Arab drama made familiar across the region
- Levantine Arabic guide, our introduction to the dialect family with audio recordings of common phrases
- Arabic dialect resources, the hub covering every regional dialect we have guides for