Learn Arabic in 90 Days: A Free Reading Plan You Can Print
Can you learn Arabic in 90 days? You can learn to read it. At 20 to 30 minutes a day, twelve weeks is enough to know every letter in all its joined forms, read the vowel marks, sound out words you have never seen and follow a line of real text, slowly but correctly.
You cannot learn to speak it in 90 days at that pace. Plans that promise conversation in three months assume three or four hours of study a day. Reading comes first in every kind of Arabic, so it is the right thing to spend the first three months on.
This page is that plan on one A4 sheet, for you or for your child. Four stages in the order they have to come, a tick box and a date line for each, and three checks you can run without knowing any Arabic to see whether it is working. Free to download and print. No email address, no sign-up.
What 90 days gets you, and what takes longer
These are typical for a beginner who studies 20 to 30 minutes on most days, which adds up to about three hours a week. Twice the time does not halve the months, but it helps.
| Goal | After 90 days | After 6 months | After a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read Arabic with the vowel marks | Yes, slowly and correctly | Comfortably | Without thinking about it |
| Read from the Quran | A short surah, a line at a time | A page at a steady pace; Tajweed rules can start | Steady reading, Tajweed still checked by a teacher |
| Understand what you read | Very little. This plan teaches reading, not meaning | Common words, if you learn vocabulary alongside | Simple texts, with grammar study |
| Speak | Greetings and set phrases | Short exchanges, with a speaking course alongside | Basic conversation. Comfortable conversation takes years |
| Read without vowel marks | No | No | A start, once grammar is in place |
So yes to reading in three months, and no to fluency in three or six. Our guide to the best way to learn Arabic covers the longer road, from the vowel marks to conversation, and what apps, tutors and classes each do well.
Which Arabic are you learning?
There are three kinds, and the first 90 days are the same for all of them, which is why this plan does not ask you to choose yet.
- Quranic (Classical) Arabic, for reading and understanding the Quran. Reading comes first, then vocabulary and grammar. Most families who use this sheet are here.
- Modern Standard Arabic, for news, books and formal speech. Reading first, then grammar and vocabulary.
- A spoken dialect such as Egyptian or Levantine, for talking to people. Dialect courses often teach in transliteration, but you will still want the script before long.
Choose after week twelve, when you can read. By then the choice is easier, because you will have a feel for the language.
The four stages on the sheet
The plan splits twelve weeks into four stages. The order is not a preference. Each stage assumes the one before it has actually landed, and the commonest way a home attempt falls apart is skipping the second stage because it looks dull.
| Weeks | What the learner works on | What you should see by the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Letter names and sounds, with the joined forms taught from day one rather than saved for later. Four or five letters at a time. | Pointing to the same letter in two different words and saying it is the same letter. |
| 4 to 6 | The short vowel marks. Every letter now carries three sounds instead of one, which roughly triples the work. | Given a marked letter, producing the right syllable without hesitating. Slow is fine. Guessing is not. |
| 7 to 9 | Joining letters into two and three letter combinations, then into real words. No meaning attached yet, on purpose. | Sounding out a three letter word never seen before. |
| 10 to 12 | First real text. A short surah already known by ear works best, because the ear catches what the eye misses. | A finger following the line, and the finger matching the sound. |
The right-hand column is the part worth printing. Weeks passing is not evidence of anything, and a learner can sit through six weeks of vowel marks without one of them landing.
What 20 minutes a day looks like
- Five minutes back. Read aloud what you did yesterday: the letters, the syllables or the line.
- Ten minutes new. The next few letters or marks for the stage you are in. Stop while it is still going well.
- Five minutes unseen. One of the checks below, or a word or line you have not practised.
Five or six short days a week beat one long session on Saturday. Most of reading is recognition, and recognition is built by seeing the same shapes often.
How to use the sheet
Stick it somewhere it will be seen. A fridge, the inside of a cupboard door, the wall above wherever lessons happen. It is one page for that reason.
Tick a stage when the check in the right-hand column is passed, not when you reach the end of the weeks. Those are two different days, and the gap between them tells you more than either date on its own. A child who reached the end of stage two in week six and passed its check in week nine is not behind. A child who reached the end and never passed it has a specific gap, and you now know which one.
If a stage takes half again as long as the sheet says, that is ordinary. If it takes three times as long, something in the stage below it never finished, and going back is faster than pushing on.
The three checks along the bottom
All three work without any Arabic at all, and each takes under a minute.
- The unseen word. Ask your child to read a short word you pick, not one they pick, from anywhere on the page. A child who is decoding will go slowly and usually get there. A child who has memorized the lesson will either freeze or produce something fluent and wrong.
- The same letter in a new place. Point at a letter in the middle of a word, then find what looks to you like a different shape further down and ask whether it is the same letter. You are testing whether all four written forms have landed.
- The slow down. Ask for the same line at half speed. Speed hides guessing, and children work out early that reading fast makes adults nod. Halved, guessing becomes audible even to an ear that knows no Arabic, because it sounds smoother than decoding does.
The longer version of each, and why the second stage is where most home attempts stop, is in our guide on teaching Arabic to your children when you do not speak it.
If you are the one learning
The sheet was written for parents teaching a child, and it works the same way for an adult on their own. Adults usually get through stage one faster, often in two weeks, because they can hold more letters at once. Stage two takes as long as it takes anyone. Nobody gets the vowel marks faster by being older.
Run the checks on yourself with your phone. Record a line, then the same line at half speed, and listen back the next day. Pick the unseen word by opening a page at random rather than choosing one. If you are learning for the Quran, the short surah in stage four should be one you already know by heart from prayer, for the same reason as a child: your ear will catch what your eye misses.
What the sheet cannot do for you
Everything above works without Arabic. Pronunciation does not.
Arabic has sounds English does not have, and several of them come in pairs that English flattens into one letter. There is a light s and a heavy s, a light d and a heavy d, a light t and a heavy t. Three separate sounds get written as h or kh in transliteration and are made in three different places in the throat. None of that is visible on a page, and none of it is audible as an error to someone who has not been taught to hear it.
So a learner can work through all four stages, tick every box honestly, and still be saying half the letters wrong, with nobody in the house able to tell. That is not a failure of the plan. It is the one part of the job that needs an ear, and it is the reason the sheet names it rather than pretending otherwise.
Print it, copy it, host it yourself
Teachers, weekend schools and homeschool groups are welcome to print this for a class, put it in a parent pack, or host the PDF on their own site. A link back is appreciated and not required. If you want it in a different format for a newsletter or a handout, email info@abobakracademy.com and we will send it over.
It sits alongside our other free printables: a printable Arabic alphabet chart for the first stage, and a short surahs tracker for the stage after this plan finishes. For the letters inside real words, the Arabic alphabet with words gives a word for every letter.
Questions
Can I learn Arabic in 3 months?
You can learn to read it in three months at 20 to 30 minutes a day: the letters, the vowel marks and a short passage, slowly but correctly. Understanding and speaking take longer. Three months of steady reading practice is the foundation both of them are built on.
Can I learn Arabic in 6 months?
In six months most beginners read comfortably with the vowel marks and, if they study vocabulary alongside, know the common words of the Quran or of everyday speech. Short, simple conversation is possible by then with a speaking course. Fluency is not.
How long will it take to learn Arabic fluently?
Years, for almost everyone. The US Foreign Service Institute puts Arabic in its hardest group for English speakers and plans about 88 weeks of full-time classes, some 2,200 class hours, for professional fluency. At a few hours a week that is a long road, so most learners set a nearer goal: reading the Quran, following simple texts, or everyday conversation in one dialect.
How many minutes a day should I study?
Twenty to thirty minutes on five or six days a week is enough for this plan, and it beats a two-hour session once a week. For a child of five or six, ten to fifteen minutes is plenty.
Can Arabic be self-taught?
Reading can, mostly. The first three stages of this plan are done alone by plenty of adults and parents. Pronunciation is the honest limit: you cannot hear your own mistakes on sounds English does not have, so even a self-taught learner does better with someone listening now and then, especially in the first two months.
Do I need to give an email address?
No. The link above is the file. There is no form, no list and no follow-up.
Does it print in black and white?
There is a version made for it, linked above. The colour sheet prints perfectly well at home, but its headings come out as solid grey bands on a mono printer, which is a waste of toner across thirty copies. The black and white version is the same sheet with none of that.
What age is this for?
Roughly five or six upwards, if the child is already reading in their first language, and any adult. Younger than five and the letters can start, but the vowel-mark stage will take considerably longer than the sheet says.
Is this Quran reading or spoken Arabic?
Reading. The plan goes from the letters to following real text, which is the skill Quran reading is built on. It does not teach anyone to hold a conversation, and the two projects are further apart than most people expect.
My child already knows the letters. Where do we start?
Run the second check on the sheet before you decide. Knowing the letters in isolation and knowing them inside words are different skills, and a child who only recognises a letter at the start of a word has not finished stage one. Closing that gap takes a fortnight rather than three weeks, and skipping it costs you stage three.
If you would like someone listening to the pronunciation while you handle the rest, our Arabic lessons for children and online Arabic classes for adults are one to one, and a free trial lesson is fifteen to thirty minutes with no commitment attached. Adults reading for the Quran can go on to our Quranic Arabic course once the sheet is done.
The plan is stage two of six. The other free sheets cover the letters before it and the Qaida after it.