Arabic words for every day: days, months, numbers and greetings
These pages collect the Arabic words that every learner meets first: al-aḥad to as-sabt, the three sets of month names and the Hijri months, the numbers from ṣifr to a million, and greetings from as-salāmu ʿalaykum to maʿa s-salāma, each in Arabic script with transliteration and IPA.
How Arabic words are written: script, direction and transliteration
- العربيةArabic Arabic script
- al-ʿarabiyyaArabic transliteration
- ١٢٣123 Eastern Arabic digits
Arabic is written from right to left in an alphabet of 28 letters that record consonants and long vowels. Short vowels have their own signs, the ḥarakāt, but English Wikipedia's article on the language notes that they are normally left unwritten. The Arabic abjad on this site shows the letters and signs, and the Arabic script table gives every letter with its joined forms as used in Arabic and eighteen other languages.
Because the short vowels are not written, Arabic words on these pages also appear in transliteration. The scheme is the one used across this site: ṯ for the th of thin, ḏ for the th of this, ḫ for the ch of Scottish loch, ʿ for the throat sound ʿayn and ʾ for the glottal stop. Each word also has IPA, taken from Wiktionary, so the pronunciation does not depend on the scheme.
Arabic numbers are often written with their own digits, the Eastern Arabic numerals, while the Maghreb uses the Western digits that Europe calls Arabic numerals. Inside right-to-left text a number still runs from left to right. The numbers page shows both sets.
English Wikipedia's article on the language notes that ISO assigns codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, and that Arabic speakers themselves call the standard written language al-fuṣḥā. The Arabic words on these pages are in that standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, with regional variants marked where a basic word differs, as the month names do between Cairo, Damascus and Algiers. The Semitic word list puts 243 Arabic words beside Hebrew, Maltese and Syriac.
Arabic words by topic
Four pages of Arabic words in Arabic script, with transliteration, IPA, grammar notes and the differences between the Arab countries.
- 01Days of the week in Arabic: al-aḥad to as-sabt with meanings and IPAThe days of the week in Arabic count from Sunday: al-aḥad is the first, al-iṯnayn the second, aṯ-ṯulāṯāʾ the third, al-arbiʿāʾ the fourth and al-ḫamīs the fifth. Friday is al-ǧumʿa, the day of assembly, and Saturday as-sabt, the sabbath.
- 02Months in Arabic: Egyptian, Levantine, Maghreb and Hijri month namesThe months in Arabic come in several sets. Egypt, Sudan and most of the Gulf say yanāyir, fibrāyir, māris, from the Latin names; Iraq and the Levant use kānūn aṯ-ṯānī, šubāṭ, āḏār, inherited from Aramaic; Algeria and Tunisia follow French, and the religious calendar has its own twelve Hijri months.
- 03Numbers in Arabic from ṣifr to a million: digits and gender polarityNumbers in Arabic are wāḥid, iṯnān, ṯalāṯa, arbaʿa, ḫamsa, sitta, sabʿa, ṯamāniya, tisʿa and ʿašara, written with the Eastern Arabic digits in much of the Middle East. From three to ten the number takes the opposite gender of the noun it counts, and above twenty the units come before the tens.
- 04Greetings in Arabic: as-salāmu ʿalaykum, marḥaban and their repliesThe most widespread greeting in Arabic is as-salāmu ʿalaykum, peace be upon you, answered with wa-ʿalaykumu s-salām, and upon you be peace. Marḥaban and ahlan are the everyday hello, ṣabāḥ al-ḫayr is good morning, and maʿa s-salāma is goodbye.
Countries where Arabic is an official language
Wikipedia's list counts 24 sovereign states where Modern Standard Arabic is an official language as of 2026. They include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Palestine, Somalia, Djibouti, the Comoros and Chad.
In several of these states Arabic shares the role with another language: Kurdish in Iraq, Berber (Amazigh) in Algeria and Morocco, French in Chad, Djibouti and the Comoros, Somali in Somalia. The country pages on this site give each state's name in Arabic script beside its other official languages, so Egypt appears as Miṣr and Morocco as al-Maġrib.
Wikipedia puts the number of speakers of all Arabic varieties at around 422 million, native and non-native, which makes it one of the five most spoken languages in the world.
Questions about Arabic words
Which Arabic words should I learn first?
The greeting as-salāmu ʿalaykum and its reply, the numbers from wāḥid to ʿašara, and the days of the week, which are mostly numbers too.
Why is Arabic written right to left?
It is the direction of the Arabic script, as it is of Hebrew. Numbers inside Arabic text are still written with the highest digit on the left.
Is there one Arabic or many?
One standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic, and many spoken varieties. ISO assigns codes to 32 of them; the words on these pages are in the standard form.
Why do Arabic words have different spellings in English?
Because there are several transliteration schemes. This site writes ṯ, ḏ and ḫ where others write th, dh and kh, and gives IPA for each word.