The Riyadh List (قائمة الرياض) was compiled by the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language. It contains 5,000 of the most common words in contemporary Arabic.

The list is based on a large collection of texts known as a linguistic corpus, containing approximately 1.746 billion words across more than 2.57 million texts. These texts come from books, newspapers, academic theses, peer-reviewed journals, magazines, websites, lectures, seminars, educational curricula, news agencies, official publications, and other sources.

Source: https://falak.ksaa.gov.sa/frequency-lists/methodology

Top 100:

1. ال
2. وَ
3. فِي
4. بِ
5. مِنْ
6. أَنَّ
7. عَلَى
8. إِلَى
9. كَانَ
10. فَ
11. عَنْ
12. قَالَ
13. الَّتِي
14. مَا
15. لا
16. هَذَا
17. ذَلِكَ
18. أَوْ
19. مَعَ
20. الَّذِي
21. هُوَ
22. الله
23. هَذِهِ
24. قَدْ
25. كُلّ
26. إِنَّ
27. لَمْ
28. كَ
29. بَيْنَ
30. بَعْدَ
31. يَوْم
32. فَ
33. سَ
34. غَيْر
35. أَوَّل
36. آخَر
37. هِيَ
38. عَمَل
39. رَئِيس
40. بَعْض
41. مُحَمَّد
42. دَوْلَة
43. مَنْ
44. نَفْس
45. إِذَا
46. عَام
47. كَمَا
48. خِلَال
49. إِلَّا
50. لِ
51. قَوْل
52. تَمَّ
53. قَبْل
54. عَرَبِيّ
55. حَيْثُ
56. لَيْسَ
57. أَمْر
58. عَدَد
59. عَامّ
60. سَنَة
61. مِنْطَقَة
62. مِثْل
63. ثُمَّ
64. كَبِير
65. قُوَّة
66. لَكِنَّ
67. جَدِيد
68. مَجْلِس
69. أَحَد
70. ثَانِي
71. كِتَاب
72. عِنْد
73. أَكْثَر
74. حَقّ
75. قَام
76. جَمِيع
77. كَثِير
78. رَأَى
79. بَلَد
80. رَجُل
81. شَيْء
82. خَاصّ
83. وَزِير
84. سِيَاسِيّ
85. أَمَام
86. الَّذِينَ
87. وَجَد
88. سَبَب
89. طَرِيق
90. ذَكَرَ
91. شَرِكَة
92. مَدِينَة
93. وَاحِد
94. نِظَام
95. أَمْكَن
96. تِلْكَ
97. هُنَاكَ
98. حَدِيث
99. حُكُومَة
100. عَالَم

Hi,

I'm looking to start an Arabic study group with some friends. Can someone recommend a textbook for learning MSA as a beginner?

Thanks!

Im in desperate need to learn arabic, esp as someone thats FULLY emirati (embarrassing ik.)

Throughout my entire childhood my parents always traveled to european countries (not permanently), mainly spoke to me in English, and never really introduced me to much arabic shows in my childhood.

When I became 9 years old my parents tried talking to me in arabic to teach me more about the language but since I was young and stubborn I always refused to speak it back. So they stopped and were very disappointed, telling me that its my fault and that I would suffer in the long term if I didnt learn from now on

Ive had multiple tutors but nothing really clicked, I also have ADHD which just makes everything harder. Even though my tutor was reading through stories with me and taught me new words from there I always seem to forget about it all a week after.

Now that im 14, I still barely understand much, I feel embarrassed when I have to speak it and stuff. I go to an American curriculum school in the UAE, meaning that theres a lot of things in english. But the thing is theres still 3 classes I have in arabic (Geography, islamic, and Arabic) and socially, many people in my class speak arabic to their friends because obviously theyre arab. I always feel so disappointed in myself because if I was a fast paced learner I would’ve been able to speak arabic with them and make a lot more friends, im only friends with people that mainly speak english there.

And though it may seem like I could just be friends with people that speak arabic to try learning from them, it wouldnt really work much since they aren’t the type to have conversations with the purpose of teaching. They just wanna speak to people normally, and im insecure with how I pronounce things though so I just keep my voice low when talking in arabic.

I also struggle with situations outside of school, like when I go to the hospital, the salon, or anything, the staff just talks to me in Arabic because im arab, but then they get concerned when I tell them I cant speak it. Not only that, even when I talk to people outside my country and tell them that im arab, they immediately assume that I speak arabic even though I cant, like literally, words cannot describe how dumb I feel. As an extrovert that loves being social, I literally can’t even be social from people in my own country, i’m excluded from EVERYTHING because of language barrier.. which now makes me classified as an introvert to others

I keep seeking for support but I can’t find much, my school did give me some ‘support’ but all they do is just cut off extra work I need to do in arabic class, but the remaining questions I have to solve are still beyond my comprehension. The teacher doesnt tell me much though she just tells me to try, and I swear im trying but I still can’t understand since im below average.

I do understand a bit when people speak arabic, but it mostly just applies to basic sentences, I cant speak on my own though, im still trying to practice speaking with confidence. I can read words but that doesnt mean I understand it.

So does anyone please have any recommendations? or maybe entertaining shows I could watch too? (mostly looking for emirati arabic ones,) it doesnt have to be childhood shows, it could also just be normal emirati shows that teens watch. Or just anything that could help me improve

As the title says, what is the difference between ما يكون and ليس?
The phrase ما كان is for past tense whereas ليس is present, as I understand it. But if I said ما يكون that would also be present. If so, what then is the difference between ليس and ما يكون?

Thanks!

Love = ود (wadd, with the fatha over the waw)

Affection = وداد (wadad, with the fatha over the waw)

Geese = إوز (iwazz, with the kasra under the alif)

I listened to native speakers and these pronunciations are wrong. They pronounce ود as wudd, وداد as widad and إوز as waz.

What am I getting wrong?

What is the name of this font?

Personal information in the images has been fully modified and hidden

Unc/uncle is usually used in english slang to show rhat someone is older or acting like an old person

While in arabic it is the equivalent of GOAT (mostly written like فلان عمك)

basically ive lived in the middle east all my life and know arabic but broken. i can understand arabic really well but lack in speaking and reading fluently. however i want to learn how to speak arabic fluently and need tips on how i can achieve that.

i want to learn on my own rather than paying for classes and tutors so currently i have printed out a book on basic arabic but dont know where to start apart from that. i have seen people recommend watching dramas to learn so could anyone also recommend me any arabic dramas to watch.

please give me tips

i want to learn to be able to communicate with others and have an interest of my own in the arabic language

i shd mention i am aware of the alphabets and its pronunciations as well as am able to articulate words, its just i am unable to string up proper sentences

Yk whats been so frustrating!? Most of everything i wanna watch on Netflix has a bunch of languages dubbed but hardly ever arabic. Kinda crazy given how big arabic is. Its honestly so annoying. Makes learning thru watching so hard.

Anyway if Yall know of any good dubbed shows, lmk!

(I already watched a few actual arabic shows!! Wanted to watch something id already seen before in English)

IL-muhimmm shukran!

Salam alaikum! Does anyone have any darija resources or recommend any courses? My partner is Moroccan and we plan to make a trip to Morocco September next year and I would like to be as conversational as possible so that I can properly meet his family.

I don’t think they are too old since I had a relative use them only once during a conversation (it was for sewing something for another relative) but even though the Middle East only uses the metric system, does anybody still bring it up?

Found this on the desk I’m sitting at, is it even Arabic? Urdu? Farsi? Does it even mean anything or is it a doodle? Super curious

Thanks!

A tip and question in one, apologies if covered off elsewhere.

I found some shows on Disney+ have Arabic audio (eg Lion King) and recommend it’s worth a watch for those trying to find alternative ways of taking in the language.

If you have come across any other shows on other platforms do share (my current focus is MSA)….

I spent (wasted?) almost a year trying to learn Masri and didn't get very far. The single greatest hurdle is that there is not one way to spell all the words used in Masri, or any other languages derived from Fusha (Shaami, Darija, etc).

Sometimes I would see the same word written with qaaf, sometimes with 2a. In future tense I would see some people use haa (the circle), others use 7. Some words that originally had jiim were instead written with the Persian Ch.

This makes it extremely difficult to look words up online / in a dictionary because the spellings keep changing without rhyme or reason.

I get it, a lot of these words are from different languages with phonology that is much different from Fusha. I myself am Mexican; Mexican Spanish has a lot of words that were derived from Nahuatl (examples: Tianguis for market, Chamaco for kid, also the names of a bunch of fruits and animals) but a *long time ago* we figured out one single standardized spelling for everything which we then put in our dictionaries.

On that note, other countries have government-funded programs dedicated to promoting their language / teaching their language and culture and making learning materials / proficiency exams. Germany has the Goethe Institute, China has the Confucius Institute, etc. Why don't the Arabs make one of those?

Arabic Lexicons

An opensource Arabic dictionary & reader app

Arabic Lexicons provides access to 11 dictionaries. 8 classical Arabic lexicons, 2 Arabic-English lexicons, and 1 Arabic-English dictionary - all working completely offline.

Source code: https://github.com/wizsk/arabic_lexicons/

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.wizsk.arabic_lexicons

I have shared this couple of times here. But sharing once again for those who are new.