Arabic Reading Guide
Arabic stories with harakat for beginners
Story Languages is an iPhone and iPad app with graded Arabic stories that carry full harakat, also called tashkeel. Every story from A1 to B1 marks every short vowel, case ending, tanwin and shadda, in Modern Standard Arabic, so you can read each word the way it is said.
Most Arabic you will find, from news sites to novels, leaves the vowel marks out. Native readers fill them in from context. Beginners don’t know the words well enough yet, so fully vowelled stories let you read real sentences instead of guessing.
Download Story LanguagesWhat fully vowelled means
A fully vowelled text marks every short vowel: fatha for a, kasra for i and damma for u. It also shows sukun where there is no vowel, shadda on a doubled letter and tanwin on endings like -an and -un. Many texts for learners mark only the odd hard word, or leave the endings out.
For a beginner every mark matters, because the vowels carry the grammar. كَتَبَ kataba is “he wrote” and كُتِبَ kutiba is “it was written”. Without their marks, both are كتب.
What to look for in Arabic reading practice
Full harakat on every word, case endings included, not just on the hard ones
Modern Standard Arabic, the written standard used across the Arab world
Graded levels, so the vocabulary grows with you
Audio, so you can check what you read against how it sounds
Tap for meaning, so you never leave the page to look a word up
Review that keeps the vowels on the words you save
How Story Languages does it
Full harakat from A1 to B1
Every Arabic story from A1 to B1 is fully vowelled, and the marks stay on at higher levels too. Arabic is set larger than Latin text, so the marks are easy to see.
Tap, hold, listen
Tap a word for its meaning in the sentence, hold it to hear it, or turn on listen mode to hear the story read aloud sentence by sentence while you follow the marks.
Vowelled flashcards
Words you save keep their harakat on the card and come back on a spaced-repetition schedule. The ready-made A1, A2 and B1 Arabic decks are vowelled on every card too.
A simple routine for a vowelled story
- 1
Read each sentence aloud, slowly, letting the marks give you the vowels.
- 2
Tap the words you don't know.
- 3
Listen to the sentence read aloud and compare it with what you said.
- 4
Save a few words worth keeping.
- 5
Reread the story a day or two later, and notice which words you can now read without the marks.
FAQ
Where can I read Arabic stories with harakat?
In Story Languages, an app for iPhone and iPad. Its graded Arabic stories carry full harakat (tashkeel) on every word from A1 to B1, in Modern Standard Arabic, with tap-to-translate, audio and flashcards built in.
Are all the Arabic stories in Story Languages vowelled?
Every Arabic story from A1 to B1 is fully vowelled, case endings included. The marks stay on at higher levels too, so you can keep checking a word's vowels as the stories get harder.
Is it Modern Standard Arabic or a dialect?
Modern Standard Arabic (fusha), the shared written standard of books, news and signs across the Arab world. Everyday speech differs from country to country; MSA is what you will read everywhere.
Can I hear the Arabic stories read aloud?
Yes. Hold any word to hear it, or turn on listen mode to hear the story read aloud sentence by sentence while you follow the text.
Do the Arabic flashcards have harakat too?
Yes. Words you save from a story keep the marks they had in the text, and the ready-made A1, A2 and B1 Arabic vocabulary decks carry harakat on every card.
Is Story Languages free?
The app is free to download, and you can start with free Arabic stories. Premium opens the full library and removes the limits.
Related pages
Learn Arabic with stories
What makes Arabic hard to read, and how reading with the app helps.
Why beginner Arabic stories need harakat
The six marks, what they show, and why reading with them pays off early.