1.2 Greeting Phrases
In This Section:
- You will learn some phrases to greet and get to know your classmates.
- You will learn where Arabic is spoken.
Activity (1): Role-play
Read and listen to the sample dialogue below and then practice with your classmates.
| Student A | SabaaH el-kheir / masaa’ el-kheir | Good morning/good afternoon |
| Student B | Sabaah in-nuur / masaa’ in-nuur | Good morning/ good afternoon |
| Student A | Ana ismii _____________ | my name is ____________ |
| Student B | Ana ismii _____________ | my name is ____________ |
| Student A | Ana min madiinat_______ fee ـــــــــــــــــــــ | I am from city of ______ in ______ |
| Student B | Ana min madiinat_______ fee ـــــــــــــــــــــ | I am from city of ______ in ______ |
| Student A | ahlan wa sahlan | welcome/nice to meet you |
| Student B | ahlan beek(m)|beekii (f) | welcome/nice to meet you too |
Do you know where Arabic is spoken?
Activity (2): Arab Countries
Study the following map with your classmates, then practice pronunciation of Arab countries below.

| Transcription | Arabic | Transcription | Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|
| al-yaman | اليمن | al-kuwayt | الكويت |
| miSr | مصر | al- ͨiraaq | العراق |
| liibyaa | ليبيا | lubnaan | لبنان |
| Tuunis | تونس | suuriyya | سوريا |
| al-jazaa’ir | الجزائر | al-urdunn | الأردن |
| al-maghrib | المغرب | as-sa ͨuudiyya | السعودية |
| muuriitaanya | موريتانيا | al-baHrayn | البحرين |
| as-suudaan | السودان | al-imaaraat | الإمارات |
| aS-Suumaal | الصومال | qaTar | قطر |
| jiibuuti | جيبوتي | ͨumaan | عُمان |
| Juzurul qamar | جُزر القمر | filisTiin | فلسطين |
Key Takeaways
- When it comes to spoken Arabic, you will encounter a variety of dialects, as you can imagine by looking at the map.
- In this book, we will be using the Egyptian dialect when we deal with conversational tasks.