Arabic Learning Resources > Levantine Arabic Resources > Palestinian Arabic
Palestinian Arabic is the southern branch of Levantine Arabic, spoken by Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. Just as many speakers live abroad: Jordan hosts the largest Palestinian community outside historic Palestine, with more in Lebanon, Syria, the United States, and Chile. That diaspora makes heritage learners - people who grew up hearing the dialect at home but never studied it - one of the main audiences for this page.
Palestinian Arabic is not one uniform way of speaking; linguists describe three broad varieties. Urban (madani) speech, heard in cities such as Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus, and Haifa, pronounces the classical qaf (ق) as a glottal stop, the same shift found in Beirut and Damascus. Rural (fallahi) speech keeps a harder k-like sound for qaf and in many villages shifts kaf (ك) toward "ch" - the most recognizable marker of village speech. Gazan Arabic, the third variety, shares some features with Egyptian. All three understand one another without effort.
A learner armed only with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the register of school, news, and formal writing, will follow a broadcast from Ramallah but miss the dinner conversation afterward. The upside is reach - Palestinian is nearly identical to Jordanian, so much so that most textbooks cover the two together, and it stays close to Lebanese and Syrian.
What makes Palestinian Arabic distinct
Grammatically, Palestinian shares the core Levantine toolkit, most visibly the b- prefix on present-tense verbs ("bahki" - I speak). What marks a speaker as specifically Palestinian or Jordanian is often vocabulary - "ishi" for thing where a Lebanese speaker says "shi," or "zalameh" for guy. The rows below pair everyday Palestinian words with their MSA counterparts:
| Palestinian | MSA | English |
|---|---|---|
| biddi (بدي) | ureedu (أريد) | I want |
| halla' (هلأ) | al-aan (الآن) | now |
| ishi (إشي) | shay' (شيء) | thing, something |
| zalameh (زلمة) | rajul (رجل) | man, guy |
| shu (شو) | matha (ماذا) | what |
| mnih (منيح) | jayyid (جيد) | good |
| hown (هون) | huna (هنا) | here |
Who should learn Palestinian Arabic
Heritage speakers are the obvious first group: if your family is Palestinian and you want to move past understanding your relatives to answering them, these materials target exactly the speech you grew up hearing. The dialect also serves journalists, aid and medical workers, researchers, and visitors to Jerusalem and the West Bank. Because Palestinian sits in the middle of the Levantine family, what you learn here works in Amman and gets you understood in Beirut. If your aim is reading Arabic or formal use across the Arab world, begin with MSA and return to the dialect later.
How to use these resources
For structured self-study, Speaking Arabic: A Course in Conversational Eastern Arabic is the deepest option in the table - four books, hours of audio, and around 2500 words, though it uses transliteration only, so check used copies to soften the price. Learners who already know some Fusha should pick Colloquial Palestinian Arabic instead, and Live Lingua Levantine offers free government-produced courses with matching audio recorded with Palestinian speakers. Pair your course with The 101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic: Jordan and Palestine, since its audio fixes verb pronunciation early.
For speaking practice, book italki sessions with a tutor from Palestine or Jordan and use Talk In Arabic's dialect lessons between meetings. Learn Arabic with Maha offers free listening input from a native Palestinian speaker on YouTube, the Palestinian History oral archive adds hours of unscripted speech, and The Olive Tree Dictionary answers the lookup questions textbooks leave open. Each resource is listed below with what it does best.
| 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. |
Frequently asked questions
Is Palestinian Arabic the same as Jordanian Arabic?
They are extremely close - close enough that textbooks such as The 101 Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic and Hakini Arabi teach them together as one variety. Both are southern Levantine dialects sharing most vocabulary and grammar. Pronunciation differs in places - urban Palestinian turns qaf into a glottal stop while much of Jordan uses a hard g - but a learner of one understands the other easily.
Should I learn Palestinian Arabic or MSA first?
For most people who reach this page, the dialect. The typical reader here wants to talk - with relatives, patients, colleagues, or neighbors in the West Bank, Gaza, or Israel - and Modern Standard Arabic does not do that job, since it is reserved for news, books, and formal speech. Reverse the advice only if reading Arabic, or using it across many countries, is your main goal.
Which variety of Palestinian Arabic should I learn?
The urban (madani) variety is the practical default: it is what city speakers in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Nablus use, it sits close to urban Jordanian and Lebanese speech, and it is what the textbooks on this page teach. The rural (fallahi) variety, famous for pronouncing kaf like the ch in cheese, and Gazan speech, which leans toward Egyptian in places, are worth recognizing but rarely need to be produced.
Can Palestinian Arabic speakers understand other dialects?
Within the Levant, yes - Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese converse freely, treating each other's speech as accents of one family. Egyptian Arabic is also widely understood thanks to decades of Egyptian film and television. Maghrebi dialects such as Moroccan Darija are much harder to follow without prior exposure.
Related dialects and guides
- Levantine Arabic resources, the wider family Palestinian belongs to
- Jordanian Arabic resources, the nearest sibling, taught jointly with Palestinian in many books
- Lebanese Arabic resources, the northern Levantine neighbor
- Syrian Arabic resources, another close Levantine relative
- Arabic dialect resources, our full hub of regional dialect guides