Arabic · Dialect course
An egyptian arabic tutor online, for the dialect everyone understands
A century of Egyptian film, television and music means Egyptian Arabic travels further than any other dialect. If you want one spoken variety that works almost everywhere, this is it.
- Around 100 million speakers
- Egypt
- Understood across the Arab world
Who this is for
Is this the right course for you?
Learners who want a spoken dialect that will be understood from Morocco to the Gulf, and anyone living in, working in or connected to Egypt.
What you cover
What the lessons cover
- Cairene pronunciation, including the glottal stop that replaces qaf
- Everyday conversation: markets, taxis, food, family, work
- The bi- and ha- verb prefixes that mark habit and future
- Negation with ma- and -sh, which textbook Arabic does not prepare you for
- Watching Egyptian film and drama without subtitles
- The Arabic script, if you do not already read it
Egyptian Arabic — masri — is the most widely understood spoken variety of Arabic, for a straightforward historical reason: Egypt made the films. From the 1930s onward, Cairo’s studios supplied the Arab world with cinema, and later with television drama and popular music. Two or three generations grew up hearing Egyptian at home even when they spoke something else.
What that means for a learner
An unusually large supply of authentic material at every level, from children’s cartoons to serious drama, and a reasonable expectation of being understood in most places you go. It is the best default choice for someone who wants to speak Arabic and has no specific country in mind.
The things that trip people up
The qaf becomes a glottal stop in Cairo, so several common words sound nothing like they look. Negation wraps around the verb rather than sitting in front of it. And the present tense takes a prefix that Modern Standard Arabic does not have at all. None of these are hard, but all of them are invisible if you have only studied fusha, which is why we teach the dialect in its own right rather than as a set of deviations from the standard.
Egyptian Arabic questions, answered properly
Will Egyptian Arabic be understood outside Egypt?
More widely than any other dialect, because of the reach of Egyptian cinema, music and television across the twentieth century. Speakers in the Levant and the Gulf generally understand it without effort. It is less useful in Morocco and Algeria, where Darija diverges sharply, though educated speakers there will still follow you.
Can I learn Egyptian Arabic without the script?
You can start, and it will slow you down permanently. Egyptian Arabic is written in the Arabic script on social media, in subtitles and in published dialect material, and the transliteration systems used in beginner books contradict each other. We teach the alphabet alongside the spoken dialect from the first month.
How different is Egyptian from Modern Standard Arabic?
Different enough that fluency in one does not give you the other. The pronunciation shifts, the verb system takes prefixes that MSA does not use, negation works differently, and much high-frequency vocabulary is not shared. Grammar is generally simpler, with no case endings, which is why many learners find speaking comes faster than reading.
Related courses
Other Arabic courses
Modern Standard Arabic
People who need Arabic on the page rather than in the street — students, researchers, journalists, and anyone preparing for formal study or professional work in the region.
Levantine Arabic
Aid and development workers, journalists, researchers, and people with Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian or Palestinian family connections.
Gulf Arabic
Professionals relocating to or already living in the Gulf, and anyone whose work, in-laws or clients are on the Arabian Peninsula.
Moroccan Darija
People moving to or working in Morocco, those with Moroccan family, and learners who have tried a general Arabic course and found it did not match what they heard on the ground.
online arabic tutor — every level and every course we teach in Arabic.
Start with a free Arabic trial lesson
You meet the tutor, they work out where you actually are, and you both decide whether to carry on. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.