Learn Arabic with the Madinah books: a step-by-step guide to Book 1

How to learn Arabic with the Madinah books: the short version

You can learn Arabic with the Madinah books on your own if you move lesson by lesson and work every sentence down to its last vowel. This guide shows you how, using Madinah Book 1 and examples from lessons 1, 2, 3 and 5.

• Start with Book 1. Inside Book 1, do not skip lessons: each one reuses what the earlier ones set up.
• Work every lesson in five steps: read aloud, understand the grammar point, copy by hand, redo the exercises without the answers, review the words.
• The two usual sticking points are words that fade and final vowels. Spaced review handles the first; always writing the full vowels handles the second.
• Medina Way, an app based on the Madinah method, turns the book's sentences into short exercises and brings the words back in spaced reviews.

What is the Madinah method?

People say “the Madinah method” for learning Arabic from the Madinah books, starting with Book 1. Each lesson is built around one precise grammar point, which you meet through short sentences.

In the lessons quoted here, sentences often sit under a picture and use simple everyday words: a door, a house, a pen, a cat. Exercises follow: read and write, answer questions, fill in the blanks.

In these lessons, the title names the grammar point in Arabic. Lesson 3 is called النَّكِرَةُ وَالْمَعْرِفَةُ, the indefinite and the definite noun. Lesson 5 is called الْمُضَافُ وَالْمُضَافُ إِلَيْهِ, the annexed word and the word it is annexed to.

To see where the whole path leads, look at the lessons of Madinah Book 1 at a glance. One useful detail: Medina Way is an independent project, with no tie to the Islamic University of Madinah or to the book's publishers.

In what order to work through Madinah Book 1

The rule is simple: go through Book 1 one lesson at a time, without skipping. The lessons fit into each other, and whatever is missing at one step trips you up at the next.

• Lesson 1: هَذَا to point at something near, questions with مَا (for things and animals) and مَنْ (for people), and أَ to ask a yes/no question.
• Lesson 2: ذَلِكَ, for something far away. It is used like هَذَا and reuses the questions of lesson 1: مَا ذَلِكَ؟ ذَلِكَ نَجْمٌ.
• Lesson 3: the article ال, placed on nouns you already know. بَيْتٌ (a house) becomes الْبَيْتُ (the house), and إِمَامٌ from lesson 2 becomes الْإِمَامُ.
• Lesson 5: the annexation, to say “Muhammad's book” with no word for “of”. The ending of the second word depends on the article from lesson 3: كِتَابُ مُحَمَّدٍ, but مَكْتَبُ الْمُدَرِّسِ.

This guide does not cover lesson 4. Each lesson already on the blog has its own full article: Madinah Book 1 lesson 1: this, what and who, lesson 2: that, for things far away and lesson 3: the article, sun and moon letters.

When should you move on? When you can read every sentence with its vowels, copy it without a model and answer the exercises without looking. How long that takes depends on you, and it is not a race.

How to study a lesson of Madinah Book 1 in five steps

A lesson is not read like a novel. These five steps let you work through it fully, on your own, with a notebook next to the book.

1. Read aloud. Read every sentence out loud, saying every vowel, including the last one. When a page opens with اقْرَأْ وَتَأَمَّلْ (read and reflect), take it literally: notice what changes from one sentence to the next before looking for the rule.

2. Understand the grammar point. In هَذَا بَيْتٌ there is no verb “to be”: in the present, Arabic simply puts the two words side by side. Notice the gender too: every noun in lesson 1 is masculine, including بَابٌ (door) and بَيْتٌ (house), which is why هَذَا fits them all.

• هَذَا كِتَابٌ

  This is a book.

• أَهَذَا كِتَابٌ؟

  Is this a book?

• أَهَذَا بَيْتٌ؟ نَعَمْ، هَذَا بَيْتٌ

  Is this a house? Yes, this is a house.

3. Copy by hand. Several exercises in the book carry the instruction اقْرَأْ وَاكْتُبْ, “read and write”. Copy each sentence by hand with all its vowels: writing makes you see every letter and every mark, which reading alone lets slip by.

4. Redo the exercises without the answers. Cover the answers, redo the exercise, then compare. For a question with أَ, the answer starts with نَعَمْ (yes) or لَا (no), and after لَا you say what it really is.

5. Review the words. Lessons 2, 3 and 5 group new words under the heading الْكَلِمَاتُ الْجَدِيدَةُ, the new words. Make it your review list, but do not just reread it: practise recalling each word from memory.

First sticking point: vocabulary that fades

This is a classic problem when you study alone: you understand the lesson, then its words fade a few lessons later. The book keeps reusing them without listing them again, and a sentence with two forgotten words becomes unreadable.

Rereading a list feels like knowing, because the Arabic word is right in front of you. What makes a word stick is having to recall it yourself, then seeing it again before you forget it.

• Review in both directions: from English to Arabic, then from Arabic to English.
• Learn each word inside a sentence from the book: مِنْدِيلٌ with أَهَذَا قَمِيصٌ؟ لَا، هَذَا مِنْدِيلٌ, for example.
• Learn the gender with the word: all the nouns in lesson 1 are masculine.
• Keep older words in use: lesson 3 brings back إِمَامٌ and حَجَرٌ from lesson 2, as الْإِمَامُ and الْحَجَرُ.

In Medina Way, the words of each lesson come back in spaced reviews, scheduled by the FSRS algorithm. A word you recall easily comes back later, a word that slips comes back sooner: you review what needs it, without keeping a schedule by hand.

Second sticking point: final vowels

In Arabic, the last vowel of a word is not a detail: it changes with the word's role. Book 1 introduces this step by step, and it is exactly where reading “roughly” creeps in.

Start by knowing the marks themselves: Arabic vowels, from fatha to tanwin. Then follow what each lesson adds.

• Lesson 1: a noun on its own ends in a tanwin, a doubled vowel that adds an “n” sound, as in كِتَابٌ (the “un” sound).
• Lesson 3: with ال the tanwin drops and a single vowel remains, here the damma: بَيْتٌ becomes الْبَيْتُ. Never ال and tanwin together. The describing word keeps its tanwin: الْبَيْتُ جَدِيدٌ.
• Lesson 5: in the annexation, the first word takes neither ال nor tanwin. You say كِتَابُ مُحَمَّدٍ and never الْكِتَابُ مُحَمَّدٍ. The second word ends in a kasra (in this lesson), which becomes a kasra tanwin when it has no ال and does not itself start another group: مَسْجِدُ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ. Only مَنْ never changes: كِتَابُ مَنْ هَذَا؟

• كِتَابٌ

  alone: tanwin

• كِتَابُ مُحَمَّدٍ

  Muhammad's book: damma, then kasra tanwin

• مَكْتَبُ الْمُدَرِّسِ

  the teacher's desk: damma, then kasra

• عَلَى مَكْتَبِ الْمُدَرِّسِ

  on the teacher's desk: kasra, then kasra

One more trap in lesson 5: look at the word before the group. If فِي، عَلَى، مِنْ or إِلَى comes right before, the first word takes the kasra; otherwise, in this lesson, the damma. The second word always takes the kasra (in this lesson), even when it is also the first word of another group: in مَسْجِدُ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ, رَسُولِ takes the kasra. Memorize the two terms as well, because the book asks for them: الْمُضَافُ for the first word, الْمُضَافُ إِلَيْهِ for the second.

The book drills this point directly. One lesson 5 exercise has the instruction اقْرَأْ وَاكْتُبْ مَعَ ضَبْطِ أَوَاخِرِ الْكَلِمَاتِ, “read and write, marking the vowels at the ends of the words”: it prints, for example, بَيْت حَامِد, and you have to write بَيْتُ حَامِدٍ.

If you are learning Arabic to understand the Quran, this matters directly. In الْقُرْآنُ كِتَابُ اللَّهِ (the Quran is the Book of Allah), it is the annexation that says “the Book of Allah”.

In Medina Way, the “put the vowels back” exercise targets exactly this: you restore the harakat of a sentence from the book, word endings included. It is the exercise to go back to whenever an ending resists you.

Worked example: lesson 2 from start to finish

Take lesson 2: it is short, which makes it ideal for practising the method. Its new word is ذَلِكَ, used like هَذَا but for a thing or a person far away.

• مَا ذَلِكَ؟ ذَلِكَ نَجْمٌ

  What is that? That is a star.

• هَذَا حِصَانٌ وَذَلِكَ حِمَارٌ

  This is a horse and that is a donkey.

• مَنْ ذَلِكَ؟ ذَلِكَ إِمَامٌ

  Who is that? That is an imam.

• أَذَلِكَ قِطٌّ؟ لَا، ذَلِكَ كَلْبٌ

  Is that a cat? No, that is a dog.

• Read: say the four sentences aloud, sounding the tanwin of نَجْمٌ and of إِمَامٌ clearly.
• Understand: as with هَذَا, there is no verb “to be”. The small word وَ links the near thing and the far thing, and أَ attaches to ذَلِكَ to make the question.
• Pick the right question word: مَنْ for the imam, because an imam is a person, and مَا for the star.
• Copy: the lesson has a four-sentence “read and write” exercise; copy it with every vowel.
• Review: add the four new words to your reviews: إِمَامٌ (imam), حَجَرٌ (stone), سُكَّرٌ (sugar) and لَبَنٌ (milk).

With a lesson this short, the trap is to rush because everything looks easy. Lesson 3 will put ال on these same words, so know them well first.

How Medina Way helps at each step

Medina Way is a web app that installs on your phone, based on the Madinah method. It does not replace your book: it takes the book's sentences so you can work them actively.

The app works offline, so you can review without a connection, and its interface is in English and French. Today 3 lessons of Book 1 are playable, and the others are coming progressively.

The simplest way to judge is to open Book 1 at lesson 1 and do the same sentences in the app. If you want a concrete way to learn Arabic with the Madinah books without facing the page alone, now is a good time to try it.

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