Arabic shadowing: Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation practice
Shadowing means hearing a real Arabic speaker, saying the same line straight after them, and comparing your recording with theirs. This page gives eleven lines of Modern Standard Arabic (فصحى) from videos made for learners, each with its meaning, the hard letters it holds, and a button that opens it ready to record. Free, in the browser, no account.
Say your first Arabic line now
أين تسكن؟
“Where do you live?”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
0:57–0:59 · Learn Arabic with Khasu, a conversation for beginners
Three words, the shortest line here. Let your voice rise on the question, and keep the س of تسكن a plain s.
Three more lines from an everyday conversation
From a slow conversation between two speakers in Modern Standard Arabic, made for beginners: where you live, your family, your age. Short to long. Say each one after the speaker, then answer it about yourself out loud.
لا، أسرتي صغيرة، لي أخ واحد
“No, my family is small. I have one brother.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
2:03–2:06 · Learn Arabic with Khasu, a conversation for beginners · Letters: ص غ خ
صغيرة starts with the heavy ص and holds a gargled غ; أخ ends on خ, the “ch” of Scottish “loch”.
عمري ثلاثة و عشرون عاما، و كم عمرك أنت؟
“I am twenty-three years old. And how old are you?”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
0:34–0:38 · Learn Arabic with Khasu, a conversation for beginners · Letters: ع ث
Four ع in one line: عمري, عشرون, عاما, عمرك. ثلاثة has two ث, the “th” of “think”.
أنا أسكن في مركز المدينة، وأين تسكن أنت؟
“I live in the city centre. And where do you live?”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
1:22–1:27 · Learn Arabic with Khasu, a conversation for beginners
The answer to the first line, then the same question back. Say أسكن and تسكن alike: only the first letter changes.
The letters English speakers find hard
Most Arabic letters have an English sound. These do not. Each one changes the word if you replace it with the nearest English sound: قلب (heart) is not كلب (dog), and حال is not هال. Say the word slowly on its own, then inside a line below.
| Letter | How to say it | Hear it in |
|---|---|---|
| ع ʿayn | A squeeze deep in the throat, with the voice on. It is a consonant, not a vowel: do not drop it. | عمري، عيني، بعض |
| ح ḥāʾ | A strong, breathy h from the throat, as if you were fogging a mirror, but tighter. Not the plain h of ه. | ضحك، أحضرت، سحبت |
| خ khāʾ | The “ch” of Scottish “loch” or German “Bach”: air scraping at the back of the mouth. | أخ، صرخ |
| غ ghayn | The same place as خ with the voice on, close to a French r. | صغيرة |
| ق qāf | A k made further back, where the tongue meets the soft back of the mouth. Not a plain k (ك). | قطعة، القطة، ألقت |
| ص ض ط ظ the heavy letters | The heavy twins of s, d, t and the “th” of “this” (س د ت ذ): raise the back of your tongue, and the vowels around them sound darker, an a closer to the “a” of “father”. | صغيرة، ضحك، قطعة، نظرة |
| ث ذ thāʾ, dhāl | The “th” of “think” and the “th” of “this”. | ثلاثة، إنذار |
All 28 letters in a chart with English sounds, and a real line for each hard one: Arabic letters pronunciation in English.
Seven story lines for the hard letters
From two short stories told slowly in Fusha for beginners: a mouse that meets a computer mouse, and a tiger under a child’s bed. Each line packs two or more of the letters above.
ضحك الفأر عليها
“The mouse laughed at her.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
1:02–1:06 · Arabic comprehensible, “The story of mice” · Letters: ض ح ع
Three hard letters in three words: the heavy ض, the breathy ح of ضحك, and the ع of عليها.
أحضرت لي أمي بعض الماء
“My mother brought me some water.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
2:25–2:29 · Arabic comprehensible, “Under my bed” · Letters: ح ض ع
أحضرت goes from ح straight into ض: keep the ح in the throat, then raise the back of the tongue for ض.
و أحضر قطعة شهية من الكعك
“And he brought a tasty piece of cake.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
1:22–1:27 · Arabic comprehensible, “The story of mice” · Letters: ح ض ق ط ع
قطعة holds three hard letters in a row: ق at the very back of the mouth, the heavy ط, then ع.
صرخ الفأر وهو يهرب من القطة
“The mouse screamed as it ran from the cat.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
3:19–3:24 · Arabic comprehensible, “The story of mice” · Letters: ص خ ق ط
صرخ is ص then خ; القطة is ق then ط. Both pairs darken the vowel between them.
إن أزرارها تلمع مثل عيني النمر
“Its buttons shine like a tiger’s eyes.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
2:10–2:16 · Arabic comprehensible, “Under my bed” · Letters: ع ث
The ع of تلمع closes a word and the ع of عيني opens one: squeeze it in the throat both times, never drop it.
ألقت أمي نظرة و سحبت النمر من تحت السرير
“My mother took a look and pulled the tiger out from under the bed.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
1:52–1:58 · Arabic comprehensible, “Under my bed” · Letters: ق ظ ح
نظرة has ظ, a heavy “th” as in “this”. Then سحبت: a ح, not an h.
فجأة و بدون سابق إنذار، ظهرت قطة المنزل
“Suddenly, without warning, the house cat appeared.”
Listen and record · Type what you hear
3:04–3:13 · Arabic comprehensible, “The story of mice” · Letters: ق ذ ظ ط
إنذار has the light ذ and ظهرت its heavy twin ظ: hear the difference, then copy it. The longest line: say it after the speaker first.
How to shadow an Arabic line
- Listen first. Play the line two or three times and read it while you listen. Use Type it (“Type what you hear”) to check you caught every word.
- Say it after the speaker. Record the line in “After the speaker”, a few words at a time if you need to, then the whole line.
- Compare. Play your take beside the original. Listen to one hard letter at a time: is your ح in the throat? Is your ق further back than a k?
- Then say it with the speaker. Once it is easy, choose “With the speaker” and keep up with their rhythm.
What Sada checks, and what it does not
Compare shows which of your words Sada recognised against the captions, and your timing. It does not grade individual sounds, so it cannot tell you whether a letter was right: its speech model guesses words from context, so a word can come across even when one sound in it was off. Judge the hard letters by ear, against the speaker.
Arabic captions are written with or without vowel marks (ذَهَبْتُ or ذهبت). Sada counts the word either way, in a take and in Type it. In a spoken take it also accepts either way of writing a hamza or a final ة, because the speech model picks one of them on its own. In Type it, spelling counts: أنا typed as انا is a mistake.
How well it hears Arabic: on 2026-10-26 a synthetic Arabic voice said fifteen sentences, this page’s lines among them, and Sada recognised 82% of the words on a computer and 66% on a phone. Short lines came across whole; in long lines the phone’s smaller model wrote some words as other words. If a word turns red and you are sure you said it, listen to your take in Compare before you change it, and practise long lines on a computer if you can.
This page is for learning to speak Arabic. It does not teach the rules for reciting the Quran.
Keep going
Any YouTube video with Arabic captions works the same way: paste it on Sada’s start page. Sada is also used for other languages: shadowing in Spanish, Japanese, Korean, French and more. New to the method? What is shadowing?
Untuk penutur bahasa Indonesia: percakapan bahasa Arab sehari-hari untuk pemula, dengan arti dan cara baca.
Questions people ask
How do I practise Arabic pronunciation on my own?
Shadow short lines from real speakers: listen, say the line straight after them, record yourself and compare with the original. Start with three-word lines and work through the hard letters (ع ح ق ض ط ظ) one at a time, by ear.
Which Arabic letters are hardest for English speakers?
The throat letters ع and ح, the back letters خ, غ and ق, and the heavy letters ص, ض, ط and ظ. Each one changes the word if you replace it with an English sound.
Is this Modern Standard Arabic or a dialect?
Modern Standard Arabic (Fusha), the Arabic of news, books and most courses. The lines come from videos made for learners of it.
Can Sada check my Arabic pronunciation?
It shows which of your words it recognised against the captions and your timing, with or without vowel marks. It does not grade individual sounds, so listen to your take beside the speaker in Compare.
Practise again tomorrow? Get one short sentence a day, ready to record in one tap.
You don't need to speak fast.
A slow line to begin with: listen to how “don’t need to” runs together, then say it at the speaker’s pace.
Free · One email a day · Unsubscribe anytime. Confirm your email to start. We keep only your email, language, time zone and where you signed up.