Three things about Arabic writing you need to know first
1. Arabic reads right to left. This applies to the direction of the text on a page, a sign, a menu, a product label, a receipt. The book starts at what looks like the back cover to English readers. A price tag reads from right to left. Once you know this, you stop looking at the wrong end of a line. In bilingual signs — common in airports and on motorways — the Arabic and English text typically appear side by side, mirrored, which helps orient you quickly.
2. Letters connect to each other within a word. Arabic does not use separate print letters the way English does. Most letters join to the letter that follows them in the same word. A single word is a flowing ligature. This is why handwritten Arabic and sign Arabic can look very different from typeface Arabic in a textbook — the connections are drawn differently. When you see a long curved shape on a sign, it may be three or four connected letters forming a single word. The good news is that common short words like مطعم (restaurant), حمام (toilet) and خروج (exit) have distinctive shapes that you will start recognising by sight after a little practice, without needing to decode each letter individually.
3. There are no capital letters. Arabic has no distinction between upper and lower case. There is no convention of capitalising the first letter of a sentence or a proper name. This simplifies things slightly — you do not need to learn two forms of every letter for capitalisation purposes. Letters do change shape based on position in a word (initial, medial, final, isolated), but that is a shape variation rather than capitalisation.
With those three rules established, the rest is pattern recognition. A tourist does not need to decode every word from scratch — the goal is to spot shapes you have seen before. The fifteen words in the next section cover the majority of signs you will encounter in an Egyptian city.
The numbers on Egyptian signs and price tags
Eastern Arabic numerals are used alongside Western numerals throughout Egypt. Both appear on signs, menus and receipts. Learning to read the Eastern forms takes about twenty minutes.
| Value | Eastern Arabic numeral | Name in Egyptian Arabic | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | ٠ | صفر | ṣifr |
| 1 | ١ | واحد | wāḥid |
| 2 | ٢ | اتنين | itnēn |
| 3 | ٣ | تلاتة | talāta |
| 4 | ٤ | أربعة | arbaʿa |
| 5 | ٥ | خمسة | xamsa |
| 6 | ٦ | ستة | sitta |
| 7 | ٧ | سبعة | sabʿa |
| 8 | ٨ | تمانية | tamanya |
| 9 | ٩ | تسعة | tisʿa |
A practical note on ٤ (four) and ٥ (five): many people new to Eastern Arabic numerals confuse these two. Remember that ٤ has an open hook that points left — like a reversed number-three — while ٥ is a small circle or dot-circle that looks nothing like the Western 5. Practice by reading the floor numbers on an elevator panel or the prices in a market once you arrive — you will have them fixed within half a day of real exposure.
Numbers in prices are written left to right even though the surrounding Arabic text reads right to left. So a price tag reading ٢٥ جنيه means 25 pounds — you read the numerals in the familiar direction (٢ then ٥ = 25), then the currency word (gineeh) to the right. This is one of those things that confuses people briefly and then never again. The numbers and money guide covers currency and price phrases in full spoken Masri.
The fifteen signs every Egypt visitor will see
You do not need to decode these letter-by-letter. Learn the shape of the whole word as you would a logo. After two or three days in an Egyptian city you will recognise most of them on sight.
| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| مطعم | maṭʿam | Restaurant | Signs above restaurants and food stalls |
| حمام | ḥammām | Toilet / bathroom | Corridor signs, doors, service stations |
| مخرج | makhrag | Exit | All public buildings, metro, cinemas |
| مدخل | madkhal | Entrance | Shops, museums, hotels |
| مغلق | maghlag | Closed | Shop doors |
| مفتوح | maftūḥ | Open | Shop doors, service windows |
| صيدلية | ṣaydaliyya | Pharmacy | Green crescent sign + this word |
| شرطة | shurṭa | Police | Police checkpoints, stations, uniforms |
| مستشفى | mustashfa | Hospital | H signs, roadside directions |
| تذاكر | tazākir | Tickets | Ticket windows at museums, monuments, trains |
| ممنوع | mamnūʿ | Forbidden / No… | Prohibition signs (often followed by an activity) |
| بنك | bank | Bank | Bank branches, ATM vestibules |
| سوبر ماركت | sūbar mārkīt | Supermarket | Shop signs |
| قهوة | ʾahwa | Café / coffee | Café signs; also the word for the place itself |
| ميترو | mitrū | Metro | Cairo Metro station signs and maps |
Fourteen high-frequency letters to start with
If you want to go beyond sign-recognition, here are the letters that appear most often in common words. Learn these and you can decode a large proportion of short words.
| Letter (isolated) | Name | Approximate sound | Appears in |
|---|---|---|---|
| ا | Alif | aa (long A) | باب (door), ماء (water) |
| ب | Ba | B | بيت (house), بكام (how much) |
| ت | Ta | T | تكسي (taxi), تذاكر (tickets) |
| د | Dal | D | دكتور (doctor), دخول (entry) |
| ر | Ra | rolled R | رجال (men), رحلة (trip) |
| س | Sin | S | سوق (market), سعر (price) |
| ش | Shin | SH | شارع (street), شكرًا (thank you) |
| ط | Ta (emphatic) | heavy T | طريق (road), مطار (airport) |
| ع | ʿAyn | voiced pharyngeal (no English equiv.) | عربي (Arabic), معك (with you) |
| ف | Fa | F | فندق (hotel), فين (where) |
| ق | Qaf | glottal stop in Masri (ʾ) | قهوة (café), قريب (near) |
| ل | Lam | L | لو سمحت (please), لا (no) |
| م | Mim | M | مطعم (restaurant), مطار (airport) |
| ن | Nun | N | نعم (yes), نهر (river) |
A note on ع (ʿAyn): this is the most distinctive sound in Arabic and the one English speakers find hardest. In the script it also has one of the most recognisable shapes — a small open oval that looks a little like a reversed number-three when isolated, changing to a looping shape when connected. On signs you will see it in words like maṭʿam (restaurant — مطعم) and shāriʿ (street — شارع). Learning to spot it helps you break down those two very common words. The pronunciation guide explains how to approximate the sound itself.
The letter ق (Qaf) is notable because in written Modern Standard Arabic it represents a sound similar to a K made at the back of the throat, but in spoken Egyptian Arabic (Masri) it is pronounced as a glottal stop — the pause in the middle of "uh-oh" in English. This means the word for café (قهوة) is written with Qaf but pronounced ʾahwa, not qahwa. On signs you are reading Standard Arabic; in conversation you are hearing Masri. The gap between the two is not a problem — it just means the script and the pronunciation guides complement each other rather than being identical.
Three methods that work before you arrive
Switch your phone to Arabic for a day
Change your phone or tablet display language to Arabic in settings. You already know where every button and menu item is, which means you can focus on what the Arabic text looks like without the cognitive load of figuring out what a control does. Give it a day and you will have passively scanned Arabic text hundreds of times. Switch back when you are ready. The experience of recognising familiar interface words in script form is a surprisingly effective training loop.
Use Google Maps in Arabic mode for Egyptian cities
Open Google Maps, switch the language to Arabic, and browse the streets of Cairo or Alexandria. Street names, landmark names, neighbourhood names — all in Arabic. You can compare the Arabic with the familiar English names to build pattern recognition for common words. Look for مطعم (restaurant) appearing as a category icon, شارع (street) as part of road names, and the fifteen sign-words from the table above scattered through the map labels. This is free, zero-commitment practice that works well over a lunch break.
Read menus and receipts during your trip
Once in Egypt, treat every Arabic-text surface as practice material. A café menu in Arabic alongside a transliteration is a perfect exercise — you hear the word, see the transliteration, and can match it to the script. A receipt gives you numerals in context. A pharmacy sign over the door is the word صيدلية to practice. The fifteen words in the table above are enough to make your first week of street-reading feel rewarding rather than overwhelming. Add the market phrases to your vocabulary and you will be reading price tags too.
About Arabic script and reading in Egypt
No. You can travel Egypt very comfortably with zero knowledge of the script. In tourist areas, major transport hubs, airports, museums and most hotels, English is available. However, recognising even ten to fifteen common words in Arabic script — restaurant, exit, entrance, toilet, closed, open, police, pharmacy — makes navigating local streets noticeably easier and less stressful.
The full Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. Dedicated learners recognise all of them within two to three weeks of daily practice. For a traveller with limited time, learning the twelve most common letters plus the Eastern Arabic numerals 0–9 takes four to six hours and covers the majority of signs you will encounter. You do not need to write — recognising shapes is enough.
Arabic letters change shape depending on their position in a word: initial (start), medial (middle), final (end) and isolated. Most letters have two or four forms. Additionally, signs often use simplified or stylised letterforms. The core shapes remain recognisable once you have learned the isolated forms.
It varies. Newer signage, motorways and airports often use Western Arabic numerals (0–9). Older signs, market price tags, official documents and rural road signs frequently use Eastern Arabic numerals (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩). Knowing both sets removes most number confusion — learning them takes about 20 minutes using the table on this page.
Signs in Egypt are written in Modern Standard Arabic (the formal written language). Spoken Egyptian Arabic (Masri) is the dialect — it differs in some words and several sounds. Our phrasebooks teach Masri; this script guide covers the written standard you see on signs. The two complement each other.
Yes — add the Arabic keyboard in your phone settings. Google Translate and similar apps work better when you can type or scan Arabic text directly. The Arabic keyboard on a smartphone is phonetically arranged, which helps beginners find letters once they know the sounds from the pronunciation guide.
After mastering letter recognition, the next step is decoding short words without diacritics — the way Arabic is actually printed. We offer private tutoring sessions specifically on reading and script for those who want to go further. See the short courses page for details or contact us to arrange a session tailored to your pace.
Yes. Google Translate's camera function (tap the camera icon, point at Arabic text) reads Arabic reasonably well for straightforward signage. Microsoft Translator has a similar live-camera feature. Neither is perfect with highly stylised script or very old fonts, but both handle modern printed signs well enough to be useful in a pinch. Knowing the fifteen sign-words from this guide means you will not need the app for those common situations.
Written Modern Standard Arabic is the same across all Arabic-speaking countries — a sign meaning "exit" in Cairo uses the same word as in Riyadh or Casablanca. Spoken dialects, however, differ significantly. Egyptian Masri is one of the most widely understood dialects because of Egypt's film and music industry, which means the spoken phrases on our phrasebooks have broader reach than, say, Moroccan Darija.
What to read next
If this page has got you curious about the Arabic sounds that underlie the letters, the pronunciation guide is the logical next step — it explains the letters that confuse English speakers (ʿayn, ḥ, the emphatic consonants) in terms of what they physically feel like to produce. No script required to use it; the two guides work independently.
For the practical spoken side — the phrases that use the words you have started to recognise in signs — start with essential phrases and then pick the situation that fits your trip: market bargaining, transport, or food. If you want a teacher to connect the script and the speech in real time, see the short courses page.
Script session available
We can build a private tutoring session entirely around reading — letter forms, common signs, numerals and first words. One hour gets most travellers to confident sign-recognition. Details on the courses page or send us a message.