A new free app from Georgetown University in Qatar’s (GU-Q) Arabic language program aims to make it easier for expatriates and tourists to strike up conversations with locals in Qatar.
The Qatari Phrasebook app is a quick reference guide that provides users with both the written and spoken form of more than 1,500 common Arabic words and phrases, as well as pronunciation tips.
The app, which is available for Android and iOS devices, specifically focuses on the dialect spoken in Qatar. Its creator, mobile learning specialist Hany Fazza, came up with the idea after hearing from Qatar residents who wanted to learn conversational Arabic but couldn’t attend formal classes.
“I thought, ‘They are non-native speakers, they are working here, and they don’t have time to go to evening school. What about if I create something that is cheap and easy to use?’” said Fazza, an Arabic language instructor at GU-Q. “The common mobile applications we have are for Modern Standard Arabic – you will find very few applications that have something to do with the dialects.”
