Finally learn the Arabic
your family
actually speaks.
The complete Lebanese dialect path — A1 to C2, CEFR-aligned levels, a professional team of native Beirut instructors. Built for the diaspora, the families who married into it, and every organisation that works with Lebanon.
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Currently taught in English. Coming soon: French-language access, then Spanish — so you can learn Lebanese from the language you're most comfortable in.
Most Arabic-learning platforms teach Arabic.
We teach you Lebanese.
Arabic and Lebanese are not the same thing. Modern Standard Arabic is a formal written language. Lebanese is the living dialect your family actually speaks — and it is not the same as Jordanian, Syrian, or Palestinian.
If you've tried to follow a conversation with family and still felt lost — the course wasn't built for you. This one is.
❌ General Arabic-learning apps
Built for Arabic broadly. Platforms such as Duolingo focus on Modern Standard Arabic — a formal written variety, not the Lebanese dialect used in everyday life.
❌ Generic "Levantine Arabic" courses
Levantine is a region, not a dialect. Courses marketed as Levantine Arabic can span Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian — and Lebanese gets lost in the mix.
❌ YouTube & scattered content
Excellent for exposure and individual phrases. Not a structured curriculum with clear progression, assessment, and a measurable result.
✅ Speaking Lebanese
Focused entirely on Lebanese Arabic. Structured curriculum. Professional instructors from Beirut. CEFR-aligned assessments. Built for the diaspora — and for organisations.
Lebanese dialect. Nothing else.
Every lesson. Every word. Every audio recording. Authentic Lebanese — designed by a Beirut-based course designer and delivered by a team of native instructors. Built for exactly one dialect, with nothing else quite like it.
100% Lebanese Dialect
Not Modern Standard Arabic. Not generic Levantine. The Arabic your family speaks, exactly as they speak it.
CEFR-Structured, A1 to C2
Mapped to the same international framework used by universities, embassies, and global employers. A real pathway, not an open-ended app.
Professional Teachers, from Beirut
Every recording, dialogue, and video scenario is led by qualified language teachers — not a crowd-sourced voice or AI.
DELE (Spanish) · MBA
Designed by an expert. Delivered by a team.
Nidale Bachir is the co-founder and course designer behind everything you'll learn here — a native of Beirut who leads Speaking Lebanese's team of professional instructors. For more than 25 years she's done something deceptively rare: taught the Lebanese dialect properly — with the structure, rigour, and care most people assume only exists for "big" world languages.
She's a formally credentialed language teacher with the DAEFLE qualification in French-language teaching and the DELE diploma in Spanish, and holds an MBA from the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) — the rare combination of classroom mastery and the discipline to build a real institution. Across more than two decades she taught professionals, corporate teams, adult beginners, and children, earning a 4.9/5 average rating — experience she now channels into designing every lesson and leading the instructors who teach it.
When she set out to build Speaking Lebanese, she did not adapt a generic Arabic course. She designed a complete pathway from the ground up — six CEFR-aligned levels, 48 lessons, 576 individual activities — every dialogue, every native recording, every quiz, every interactive exercise — mapping a living spoken dialect to an international framework for the first time. It is the course she always wished she could give her students.
25+ years in language education — professionals, corporate teams, adult beginners, and children
DAEFLE (French) & DELE (Spanish), plus an MBA (USEK) — formal teaching credentials plus the discipline to design a full curriculum
Leads a team of native Beirut instructors — every lesson, recording, and assessment is built and reviewed under her direction
"Lebanese is not a foreign language — it is a living one. And living languages are meant to be spoken, not just studied. Learning a language can feel overwhelming, but it really just takes a structured path, engaging practice, and confidence — practice, practice, practice."
It started with one student who refused to give up.
How a language lesson became a friendship, and a friendship became a mission.
I'm British-American, and I've been married into a Lebanese family for over thirty years. For decades I longed to speak the language my husband's family spoke around me — but when our children were small there was never time, and every "Arabic" course I tried taught a formal language nobody at our table actually spoke.
Then I met Nidale. She started by teaching me French — and she was so good that when I finally decided to learn Lebanese, at 52, with only a few random Arabic words to build on, I knew there was only one teacher I trusted to get me there. Lesson by lesson, her method did what years of apps never could. I went from a handful of words to understanding my family, joining the conversations I'd sat outside of for thirty years, and falling in love with the language.
Somewhere along the way, my teacher became a dear friend. And we both realised the same thing: what Nidale had built wasn't just working for me — it was something the whole world had been missing. Millions of Lebanese families, scattered across the diaspora, are watching their language quietly slip away from their children and grandchildren. Nobody was teaching the real, spoken Lebanese — properly, beautifully, in a way that lasts.
So we decided to build it together. Speaking Lebanese is our answer: to keep this beautiful language alive, to honour the heritage behind it, and to give every family in the diaspora a real way home to it. I'm living proof that Nidale's method works — and if I can do it, you can too!
hello@speakinglebanese.com
