Course description
Arabic Beginners (Full Syllabus)
Learn to read, write and speak Arabic – ideal for total beginners. Progress over three terms with this dynamic and enjoyable evening course.
Develop practical communication skills with our Arabic Beginners course, taught over one year.
Arabic is one of today’s most relevant languages – and not as difficult to learn as you may think.
The course covers everything from the alphabet to grammatical structures, greetings to describing objects. We’ll introduce the Arabic script, letter by letter, to learn its unique sounds and develop listening and speaking skills.
Once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll learn how to make polite requests and express likes and dislikes. We’ll also spend time exploring Arabic media and culture.
By the end of the course, you’ll understand the structure of Arabic and feel confident translating simple sentences, communicating at CEFR A1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages.
Upcoming start dates
Suitability - Who should attend?
We’ve designed this course for complete beginners, so don’t worry if you’ve never attempted Arabic before.
Eligibility:
We’ve designed this course for complete beginners.
If you have some experience you may want to join part 2 or part 3 of the beginners syllabus.
More experienced? Take a look at our Arabic Intermediate course to work towards CERF A2.
English requirements:
You will need a good level of spoken and written English to enrol on this course.
Outcome / Qualification etc.
If you attend over 70 per cent of your classes, you’ll receive an official City certificate. Our short courses are not accredited. Any assessment will be informal to help you evaluate your own progress.
Benefits
- Develop a solid beginners knowledge and reach CEFR A1 in just 30 weeks
- Interactive and engaging methods of teaching, including video clips, games and activities
- Learn from qualified and native Arabic speakers, with extensive experience teaching at London universities.
Training Course Content
We’ve designed this course to help you understand the structure of Arabic. The three parts will help you learn to speak, read, write and listen to simple Arabic sentences.
Throughout the year, you’ll learn:
- to write and read the alphabet and recognise sounds (phonetics)
- some colloquial Arabic
- greetings and introducing yourself
- to describe everyday objects, surroundings, family, countries and people
- to talk about daily routines, numbers and prices, telling time and weather
- to discuss food, drink and activities
- to discuss likes and dislikes
- to handle simple daily conversation and request information
- to talk about present, past and future events
- Arabic culture including Arab countries and capitals, political system and media.
Grammatical structures
- Subject and predicate
- Pronouns: separate; attached
- Expressing possession
- The relative noun Nisba
- Gender in Arabic nouns
- Diacritical marks Shadda, madda, tanwin, sukun
- Demonstrative pronouns; gender agreements
- Contrast particles
- Assimilating and non-assimilating sounds; sun and moon letters
- Definite and indefinite nouns; idafa structure; dual nouns; plural of non-rational noun (non-human)
- Arabic verbs; object of verbs
- Negatives
- Interrogative form
- Ordinal numbers and number noun agreement
- Preposition of place
- Object of prepositions
- Pronouns of separation
- Present tense: conjugation; negation
- Revisiting idafa structure
- Imperative mood
- Cardinal numbers 11-999
- Expressing possessive using different particles
- Attached pronouns suffixed to verbs
- Adverbs of time
- Past tense: conjugation; negation
- Verbal nouns masder.
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