What We Teach

Getting around Egyptian cities involves a mix of Uber, white taxis, microbus rides and occasional metro or tuk-tuk segments. In each context you need a slightly different set of phrases, and the ability to say where you are going clearly enough that the driver does not take a scenic detour for a better fare. The four essential direction words — yimīn (right), shimāl (left), ʿalā ṭūl (straight on), wara (behind) — get you further than almost anything else. Adding hena (here), henāk (there) and waqif hena (stop here) gives you enough to manage the last block of almost any journey.

For taxis you need the phrase ʿāyiz arūḥ… (I want to go to…) plus the destination, the ability to ask ʿaw kam el-ʿaddād? (is the meter running?) and a grasp of ḥawwil hena (turn here). Cairo white taxis with drivers who do not use meters require you to negotiate the price before getting in — ʿaw ib-kām? (how much will it be?) — and the getting around guide walks through a full sample negotiation. Asking fēn maḥaṭṭet el-metro? (where is the metro station?) and understanding a pointed finger plus a few words of direction saves considerable confusion in Cairo. The guide also covers the airport to city transport options, bus station vocabulary and the phrases needed for Luxor and Aswan felucca or ferry rides.

A useful supplement for this topic is the numbers and money guide, since transport costs are always quoted in numbers you'll need to respond to in real time. In the live short courses the directions module is taught with a simple map-navigation exercise that forces participants to give and receive directions in Masri — the fastest way to internalise the vocabulary under mild pressure.

Egyptian food culture is one of the country's greatest pleasures. From the ful medames breakfast carts in Alexandria's side streets to the rooftop restaurants overlooking the Nile in Cairo to the fish restaurants of Port Said, every meal is an opportunity for connection — and a handful of Masri phrases makes each one considerably richer. The restaurant topic covers the full arc of a meal: getting seated, reading a menu out loud, placing an order, asking about ingredients, complimenting the cook and paying the bill.

Key phrases include: ʿāyiz tāwila li-itnēn (a table for two, please), ēh el-ʾakl el-maḥalli hena? (what's the local food here?), bass min gheir baṣal (without onion, please), el-ʾakl kān lazīz awi (the food was very delicious), el-ḥisāb, law samaḥt (the bill, please) and khedmit nafs? (is service included?). We also cover tea and coffee vocabulary — Egyptian tea (shāy) is usually strong and sweet, and knowing how to specify bishakkar (with sugar) or minn gheir shakkar (without sugar) and bishkara beeda (with milk) removes the trial-and-error phase of breakfast.

The café module addresses the specific vocabulary of Egyptian coffee houses (ahwa), which serve as social hubs and have their own ordering vocabulary. The tea-and-coffee section also covers the ubiquitous koshary restaurants and street-food ordering at ful and taameya carts. This topic area is taught in depth in the Travel Crash Course — the pre-trip live sessions covered in detail on the pricing page.

No one plans to use emergency phrases on holiday, which is exactly why they need to be learned in advance and not improvised under stress. The emergency vocabulary topic covers the phrases needed in medical situations, theft or loss, police interaction and the general phrase set for communicating distress clearly to strangers. Egyptian people are almost uniformly helpful in genuine emergencies, but they need to understand what you are asking for.

Core emergency phrases: sāʿduni! (help me!), ʿandi waga kbiir hena (I have severe pain here, pointing), ana ʿandi ḥassāsiyya min… (I am allergic to…), ʿāyiz doktōr (I need a doctor), ʿāyiz mustashfa (I need a hospital), itsaraqu (I've been robbed), ḍāyaʿ gawāz safarī (I've lost my passport). We also cover the phrases for pharmacies — agzakhaana — which in Egypt dispense many medications without prescription and are often the first port of call for minor illness.

The health vocabulary section includes body part names for pointing-and-saying, descriptions of common symptoms (fever — sukhuniyya, vomiting — istafragha, diarrhoea — is-hāl), and the phrases for explaining dietary restrictions or food allergies in a medical context, which differ from the restaurant ordering phrases in both register and urgency. For travellers with serious medical conditions we strongly recommend preparing a card in Arabic with the relevant medical information — we can advise on this via contact.

Time vocabulary is foundational and surprisingly often missing from basic travel phrasebooks. Knowing how to say what day of the week it is, how to read a clock face out loud in Egyptian Arabic, and how to discuss durations — sabʿa tiyyām (seven days), nuṣṣ sāʿa (half an hour), baʿd bukra (the day after tomorrow) — is genuinely useful for scheduling tour timings, negotiating with drivers and understanding shop or attraction opening hours.

Egyptian Arabic time telling uses a twelve-hour clock with el-ʾaḍr (noon) and el-leīl (night) as dividers, with fractions expressed as wa nuṣṣ (and a half), wa ruba (and a quarter) and illā ruba (quarter to). Days of the week in Egyptian Arabic carry their own names that differ from Modern Standard Arabic in spoken form, and the Islamic calendar creates holiday vocabulary — Ramaḍān, ʿīd el-fiṭr, ʿīd el-aḍḥā — that is useful for any traveller planning around Egyptian public holidays. This topic is incorporated into the essential phrases guide and into the numbers module on the numbers and money page.

The Arabic script is not required for travel in Egypt, but knowing it opens a surprising number of practical doors: reading bus destination signs, recognising shop categories, identifying street names on corner plaques, understanding menus that have no English column and following the Arabic numbers on banknotes and receipts. Our script basics guide takes a learner from zero to recognising the full alphabet in a structured, gentle introduction designed for curious travellers rather than linguistics students.

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, all consonants — short vowels are generally not written in everyday text. Letters take different forms depending on where they appear in a word (initial, medial, final or isolated), which is the main structural complexity. The script basics guide breaks this into five manageable groups of letters by shape family, teaches each group with recognisable mnemonics and builds up to full word recognition by the end. A learner who works through the guide completely can read basic Egyptian signage — shop names, street labels, bus destinations — which is genuinely useful and a pleasant surprise for anyone who has never tried Arabic script before.

The script topic is deliberately kept separate from the phrasebook content so that learners who do not want it are not slowed down. Everything in the phrasebooks works in transliteration alone. The script guide is for those who want to go further — and for those considering the Private Tutoring track, where deeper literacy is sometimes a goal. See the pricing page for how script learning is handled in paid courses.