Learn Arabic with short stories

Stories to read in Arabic, with the English beside each paragraph. They open in the browser, with no account needed, and each free one is also a free Arabic–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).

Open the Arabic–English library, where you can search the stories and filter them by level.

By level:

• Beginner (A1–A2): Easy Arabic short stories for beginners, with English translation · 155 stories
• Advanced (C1–C2): Advanced Arabic stories, with the English alongside · 1 stories

Every story here carries its level on the Common European Framework, from A1 for beginners to C1 and beyond, so the library works as a set of Arabic graded readers, most of them free: start at the level where you understand most of a page, and move up when the English beside it is something you check only now and then.

Arabic is written from right to left, in a script whose letters change shape depending on where they fall in a word. It looks unfamiliar at first, but the alphabet is small and regular, and the shapes become familiar after a few stories. Short vowels are normally not written, so a word’s reading comes from context, and from the English beside it.

Modern books and the news are written in Modern Standard Arabic, while everyday speech differs from country to country. The Arabic in the library is Modern Standard Arabic, the language shared by readers across the Arabic-speaking world. With the English beside each paragraph, you can follow the story while the script and the words become familiar.

For Arabic speakers, a parallel text is a way into books in English without stopping at every idiom or phrasal verb. Read the English and look across to the Arabic when a sentence doesn’t land.

It works for families abroad too: one book, two languages on the same page, so children growing up with English can keep reading Arabic with their parents and grandparents.

156 English stories in the library have Arabic alongside: تعلّم الإنجليزية من القصص القصيرة.

Long out of copyright and easy to find as EPUBs. Any of them makes a good first Arabic–English parallel text:

• كليلة ودمنة, ابن المقفع
• مقدمة ابن خلدون, ابن خلدون
• ألف ليلة وليلة, تراث شعبي
• حي بن يقظان, ابن طفيل

Or use a book you already own: the method works best with something you actually want to read. See how to read a parallel text to get the most from it.