Arabic reading practice is very important in learning the language on your own. You can learn the basics of reading from a course or with a help of a teacher, but if you don’t practice reading (often!) you will never get good at it
Especially for beginners, reading long texts can be quite tiring. You don’t have to read books right away to improve your skills.
Short written forms and an easy translation option make twitter seem like a perfect tool to give you your daily dose of Arabic.
How often should you read to improve your Arabic reading skills?
It is best to simply use Arabic every day, even in very small amounts. Consistency is very important and it is better to read one news headline every day than long articles once every couple of months. Surrounding yourself with Arabic also helps to keep you motivated to learn and makes learning more varied and therefore more interesting for you.
We recommend reading topics that interest you at least a little. This will make learning much more enjoyable and easier.
if you are interested in other ways to immerse yourself in Arabic check our detailed post about Arabic immersion ideas and free resources.
How to practice reading Arabic with Twitter?
The most important thing is to make a habit of using the language every day. After all, someone who learns Arabic wants to know it in order to use it. So there’s no point in waiting until you’re at an advanced level, you should use the language right away, from the very beginning.
Let’s take a short tweet with some international news from a news outlet as an example. You can use it to learn in many ways depending on your level.
If you don’t know the Arabic alphabet yet check our post Arabic alphabet – All you need to know to write in Arabic
Learning Arabic reading with Twitter for beginners
You don’t have to be advanced in the language to learn with Twitter. You can do it even as a beginner, here is how:
- if you can’t read the whole tweet, use the translation option
- check what the keyword of the whole information is: for example, if the tweet talks about a hurricane in USA, the keyword of the whole message will be the word hurricane, this is the most important word you should learn from this text
- write this word down in your notebook. In this way you learn a new word more easily, because the whole procedure makes the word already associated with something and it is not just a word from the list in your old notebook. Most often we associate new words with specific events – where or when we heard/read the word
- by sharing or liking a tweet, you can also find it later on your account, so you can easily return to the selected content if you want to read the same text several times
Learning Arabic reading with Twitter for advanced learners
Of course, advanced learners will benefit the most from learning a language on Twitter. Reading texts in Arabic every day will in itself make you better and better at it. However, even advanced learners can learn in a more structured way:
- read without using the translation option
- only look up words you don’t know at all, or try to guess the words meaning from context and then look them up in a dictionary to make sure
- engage in discussion with other users
- publish your own tweets in Arabic (create a separate account just for learning the language if you don’t want to mix content on your personal account)
- pay attention to the grammatical structures used in the text
Arabic reading practice – 13 Twitter accounts worth to follow
Below you can find a list of 13 Twitter accounts in Arabic to practice your daily Arabic reading. The following accounts are related to world news, travel, beauty, fashion, news about celebrities and sport news. Of course it is always better to tailor the content you read to your interests but this list is a good start to start learning Arabic with Twitter.
1. BBC Arabic
2. Vogue Arabia
3. Foochia
4. AlHadath
5. Sayidaty
6. Sky News Arabia Sport
7. 24IN2MIN
8. AlArabiya
9. Layalina
10. CNN Arabic Travel
11. Albawaba
12. DW Arabic
13. CNN Arabic
Twitter Arabic reading practice summary
Follow the Twitter accounts that seem interesting to you and start practicing your Arabic reading today! You will already notice a huge difference within the first few weeks of learning this way. Practicing reading short texts every day will make you feel more confident while reading longer texts in the future. Good luck!
If you are interested in improving your Arabic listening skills check our list of Arabic series to watch for free.