Learn Arabic from English with Natives – PBC Languages
Learn Arabic starting from English: free 1-to-1 exchanges with natives (30/30) plus small group classes at PBC Languages.
Create your free accountNo card needed. Exchanges between members are always free.
English speakers usually pick up Arabic vocabulary faster than they expect, because English already borrowed hundreds of Arabic words: coffee, sugar, cotton, alcohol, zero, algebra, magazine, sofa. Recognizing that qahwa gave you 'coffee' or that sifr gave you 'zero' makes the first weeks feel less foreign. The root system also pays off quickly once it clicks: learn the three letters k-t-b and you get kitab (book), maktaba (library), katib (writer) almost for free.
What trips people up is the sound set. Arabic has letters with no English equivalent: ع (ayin) and ح (ha) come from the throat, ق (qaf) and غ (ghayn) sit far back in the mouth, and the emphatic consonants ص ض ط ظ change meaning depending on how tight your throat is — sar with a plain س means 'he walked', sar with an emphatic ص means 'he became'. English speakers tend to flatten all of these into regular s, t, d, h, and lose distinctions that matter.
Sentence structure is the other snag: Arabic often drops 'to be' in the present (huwa tabib, literally 'he doctor', means 'he is a doctor'), and adjectives go after the noun (bayt kabir, 'house big', means 'big house'). People translate word for word from English and insert a verb or flip the word order that Arabic doesn't need. On the plus side, the alphabet is phonetic and consistent — once you know the 28 letters, you can read almost any word out loud correctly, which is more reliable than English spelling ever is.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| قهوة (qahwa) | coffee | English 'coffee' comes straight from this Arabic word via Turkish and Italian — same drink, same root, easy to keep. |
| سكر (sukkar) | sugar | Direct source of English 'sugar'; the sound is close enough that most learners get it on the first try. |
| قطن (qutn) | cotton | English 'cotton' is a borrowing from this word, so the meaning and rough sound line up. |
| صفر (sifr) | zero / cipher | This single Arabic word gave English both 'zero' and 'cipher' — worth knowing so the connection sticks. |
| كحول (kuhul) | alcohol | Originally meant fine powdered antimony (kohl); the meaning drifted a lot before reaching English, so don't assume it always meant 'drink'. |
| مطرح (matrah) | mattress | Root of the English word, though in many dialects matrah just means 'place' or 'spot' — the object sense narrowed over time. |
| جرة (jarra) | jar | Same object, related word; a safe one-to-one match. |
| بيت (bayt) | bite | Sounds almost identical to the English word 'bite' but means 'house' — a classic pronunciation trap for beginners scanning for familiar sounds. |
| يد (yad) | yard | Similar sound to 'yard', but yad means 'hand' — don't let the resemblance push you toward the wrong meaning. |
| درس (dars) | darts | Close enough to 'darts' to catch your ear, but it means 'lesson' — useful to say out loud a few times so the sound stops pulling you toward the wrong word. |
Exchanges looking for a partner
How it works here
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Sign up and say your level
Two minutes. If you do not know your level, we place you in the first class.
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Pick a class or an exchange
Classes are led by a native teacher. An exchange is with another member: half the time in their language, half in yours.
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Join by video, nothing to install
From your phone or your computer. If you cannot make it, cancel and get your place back.
Questions about this
How long does it take an English speaker to get comfortable in Arabic?
It depends heavily on whether you're learning Modern Standard Arabic or a spoken dialect like Egyptian or Levantine, since they diverge a lot. The alphabet itself is learnable in a couple of weeks with regular practice, because it's phonetic and consistent. Building working sentences takes longer, mostly because of the root system and the sounds that don't exist in English.
Is the 1-to-1 exchange actually free?
Yes. You spend 30 minutes speaking English with your partner and 30 minutes speaking Arabic with them — no payment involved, since both sides are getting practice out of it. PBC Languages just connects members; the exchange itself is a straight swap of time.
What level do I need before joining?
For the small group classes with a native teacher, you can start from zero. For 1-to-1 exchanges, knowing the Arabic alphabet and a handful of basic phrases makes the half hour more useful, but partners are used to adjusting to different levels.
How exactly is the time split in an exchange?
Straight 30 minutes in one language, 30 minutes in the other, timed so neither side ends up carrying the whole session in their stronger language. If you're learning Arabic from English, that's 30 minutes of Arabic and 30 minutes of English with the same partner.
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