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Monday, March 3, 2025

Simple Arabic, similar words to English and Hebrew

Arabic is written from right to left, the same as Hebrew. 




The Koran sold on Amazon, showing that the spine is on the right, because the writing goes from right to left.

I remember when I lived in Singapore at a dinner party held by a French Muslim women, an American guest exclaimed in surprise on seeing that Arabic books and pages and writing went from right to left.

"Well, I never knew. Arabic is written right to left, Just like Hebrew!" she exclaimed.

Her French friend from the book group was equally surprised and gasped, "You mean Hebrew writing goes right to left, like Arabic? I never knew that!"

Hebrew and English prayer book, sold on Amazon, showing spine on right and Hebrew writing from right to left like Arabic.


Learning languages is full of delightful surprises, and expansion of one's knowledge of the world, from historical times to the modern day.. 

Here are some similar words, easy for you to recognize, learn, and remember.

Arabic & Hebrew

Two languages for the price of one

English - Arabic - Hebrew

day - Araabic yam - Hebrew yom as in Yom Kippur the day (of) Atonement, which is a fasting day\

friend - Arabic sadiq

night - -Arabic laylah - Hebrew layla pronounced lie-la, laylah tov is good ight, literally night good with the adjective second 

no - la - lo

A few words

THE SAME!
bank - bank
mall - mall
supermarket - supermarket

Arabic - English
ana - I

English - Arabic
I - ana


How useful is Arabic to the traveller? It is one of the six languages of the UN.

Useful Resources
Basic conversational words and sentences

2 Earworms CD with small print booklet, and online support (from Berlitz - Earworms CDs are no longer available new, Feb 2025, but second hand on ebay. The boxed set is useful if you have a CD player in your car, or want to look at the booklet when travelling by bus or train or revising late at night in a good light.)

3 Wikivoyage Phrasebook arabic 


The Arabic phrasebook deals with Modern Standard Arabic. See the Egyptian Arabic phrasebookJordanian Arabic phrasebookMoroccan Arabic phrasebookLebanese Arabic phrasebook, or Tunisian Arabic phrasebook for Arabic dialects relating to those countries and regions.

http://www.modernstandardarabic.com/cognate-list-of-arabic-and-english-words/
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=16218

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