The Arabic Ladder
Sign inFree test
Classical and Qurʾānic Arabic · live small groups online · adults and teens

A year, and nothing to show

Most adults study Arabic for a year and cannot say what changed.

It is almost never the difficulty — it is the fog. So everything here is built to show you movement. Three ladders: grammar, recitation, memorisation. Every rung ends with something you do in front of your teacher, not a chapter you finish.

Book your free level testTwenty minutes, sat with your teacher. You leave with a starting lesson number, not a label.
A lesson in progress — the teacher's desk, books open, a marked page. The photograph goes here.
خطوة بخطوة نحو الإتقانStep by step, to mastery
2live hours a week, in your group30minutes of your own a week — the floor, not the ceiling3ladders — grammar, recitation, memorisation1free test to place you on the right one
The three ladders — each its own course, its own group, its own fee
I.Understanding ArabicThe grammar ladder, across the three Madina books.Six rungs · ≈ 30 months£120120 min weekly · monthlyII.Reading & TajwīdLetter shapes to the full rule set, corrected line by line.Five rungs · ≈ 12 months£8090 min weekly · monthlyIII.Ḥifẓ & RevisionA revision engine, with memorisation attached.Four stages · open-ended£9590 min weekly · monthly
02A week hereTwo live hours · 30 min of your own

Two evenings together. The rest, we hand you.

Two sixty-minute sessions a week, live, in a small group of people on the same lesson as you. The hour runs the same seven movements every time, so from your second session you already know the shape of the room.

One week, to scale[ evenings set per group ]
MonTue60 min liveWedThu60 min liveFriSatSun
+ at least 30 minutes of your own — wherever they fit
Inside the hour — the same seven movements01  Homework back02  New pattern03  Drill04  Read-aloud05  One parse out loud06  Exit check07  Assignment

One account holds everything we hand you.

Between the evenings, everything you need is in your own account. Give it at least half an hour a week of your own time — where it falls is yours. Built by us, for this school only — not stitched together from other people’s apps.

Five things, ready on day one
IYour own ladder, lit up.Sign in and see the rung you are on and the lesson you are inside it.IIHomework as a card.Answer by photo, voice or typing — the Arabic keyboard has a harakāt row, so you are not fighting your phone to write a fatḥah.IIIYour mistakes, remembered by name.Not “wrong” — tanwīn on a muḍāf. Each one returns in your drills until it stops being yours.IVDrills cut from the lesson deck.A few words, one phrase to parse, one thing to listen to. Nothing appears before its grammar has been taught.VEvery lesson recorded, privately.Miss one and the recording and its summary are waiting. One bad week no longer costs three.
arabicladder.com — your accountSigned in
Your ladder1Adone1Bdone2AYou are here — Lesson 41 of 882Bahead3Aahead3Bahead
Homework · Lesson 41Returned with notesذَهَبَ الطُّلَّابُ إِلَى الْمَسْجِدِ الْكَبِيرِ“Tanwīn on the muḍāf again — third time. It is on your list now, and it will keep coming back until it stops being yours.”
a student's photographed page
Answer how you likePhotograph your written work, record yourself reading, or type — the Arabic keyboard has a harakāt row.
This week’s drillSix words · one phrase to parse · one thing to listen to
Next lessonTuesday, 19:00Your group · the Meet link is readyAlready in your phone’s calendarMissed one?Lesson 40 · recording · 58 minPrivate to you. One bad week no longer costs three.Your teacher“Watch the recording from 12:40 — your question is answered there.”One private thread · text, photo, voice
Your handouts, your tests, your recordings, your history — all filed under the lesson they belong to.Ships before enrolment opens
03Ladder I · Understanding Arabic · Durūs al-Lughah, Books 1–388 lessons · 232 hours

Six rungs. The space between them is the honest time.

Every rung ends with one thing you can do in front of your teacher — read it from the bottom, the way you will climb it.

The top · ≈ 30 months at two hours a week
3BReal classical textBook 3 · Lessons 18–34Unvowelled text read aloud at pace, every ending supplied by you alone.
9 months
3AFull iʿrāb, first formsBook 3 · Lessons 1–17Every word of an unseen classical sentence, parsed — and reading starts coming off the marks.
5 months
2BMoods and weak rootsThe quit pointBook 2 · Lessons 16–31A root you have never met, any form of it on demand. Where self-teachers stop — and where the group and the teacher are the difference.
5 months
2AThe verb arrivesBook 2 · Lessons 1–15Any sound verb's full past table from memory in four minutes, and the present built from it.
5 months
1BThe complete nounBook 1 · Lessons 12–23Twenty singulars into correct plurals in six minutes; the dual; a diptote spotted on sight.
3½ months
1AThe noun's first endingsBook 1 · Lessons 1–11Read an unseen vowelled sentence aloud, every ending pronounced — and put the marks back on a line yourself.
3 months
You start here — wherever the test places youOn the exact lesson, not just the rung

At one hour a week the climb runs past five years, and most students do not finish it. At three, with a real half hour a day behind it, about twenty months. We print the honest number.

At the summit — the closing item of rung 3Bذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِAl-Baqarah 2:2

Parse an unseen āyah in full, naming the governor behind every ending. That is where this ladder stops.

04Straight answersWhat we won’t promise · the fee · the teacher

So here is what we will not promise

ScopeHe teaches listening and speaking in every session. They are not on the ladder, and not on your report.
No conversational fluency — no dialect, no small talk, no spontaneous speaking track.No listening comprehension of unscripted Arabic, and no speaking score.No free composition. Writing means dictation and controlled transformation.No shortcut through the Book 2 verb block. It is five months, and it is why people quit.Finishing 3B means parsing an unseen āyah — not ordering lunch in Cairo without effort.
The fee£120a monthTwo live hours a week, your handouts, your homework and its marking, the tests, and everything in your account. It never pays for the books — the three Madina readers are free at their source and we send you there. Ramadan and travel pause the standing order; a month’s notice stops it.
The teacher — the one photograph on the page
Who teaches[ Teacher name — three sentences in his own voice: where he studied, what he holds, how long he has taught, why the ladder is built this way. ]Every lesson, every group, one teacher
IIIts own course · its own groupReading & Tajwīd£80 / monthFive rungs · ≈ 12 months · 90 min weekly

You cannot parse a line you cannot read.

Complete beginnersRevertsFluent readers nobody has corrected

From letter shapes to the full rule set, in a small group, with your recitation corrected line by line — most people who read fluently carry two or three habits no one has ever pointed at.

Honestly stated: this is not an ijāzah course, and it teaches no grammar. It is the gate the level test sends most beginners through first — and the read-aloud alone tells us where you would start.

Ask about it on your level-test call →
How a line comes back to you
مِن قَبْلُIkhfāʼ — the nūn softenedمِنَ السَّمَاءِMadd — held four countsأَحَدٌQalqalah at the stop
Line by line, named rule by named rule — not just “good, next”. No rungs and no months are printed for II until its curriculum is written.
IIIIts own course · its own groupḤifẓ & Revision£95 / monthFour stages · open-ended · 90 min weekly
The three portions, in rotationToday's linesNewThis week'sNearEverything olderIn rotationWhen the older portion slips, the new lines stop. That is the whole mechanism.

Ḥifẓ rarely fails at memorising. It fails at revision.

So this course is built the other way round: the classical three-portion system first — today’s lines, this week’s, and everything older in rotation — on material easy enough that the system itself is what you are learning. New lines are capped whenever the older portion slips. We will tell you to wait rather than sell you the next page.

Entry needs clean reading of a vowelled page — the level test checks. Memorising errors makes them permanent.

Ask about it on your level-test call →
07The free level test — one door for all three laddersTwenty minutes · free
IIIIIIOne test decides which

Sat together with your teacher, not sent as a form.

Twenty minutes, five short parts, discussed on the same call. It returns a starting lesson number, not a label — and it decides between the ladders.

1You read aloud2Label two sentences3A passage with no vowels4Vowel a line yourself5Your goal and your hours
Choose a timeThat opens an email to zub — there is no booking form yet, and zub sits the test with you himself.It can tell you that reading, not grammar, is where you should begin — or that you are ready to memorise.