Level Up! Lebanese Arabic Stories (Book 1)

The Level Up! series is built around a scaffolded learning approach, where the same core story is presented across four carefully calibrated levels. This design allows you to experience how Arabic naturally grows in complexity, rather than forcing you to jump abruptly from beginner material into advanced text.

No matter your current level, the most effective way to use the series is to start with the A1 version of each story. This establishes a solid foundation in vocabulary, rhythm, and comprehension, making each subsequent level feel like a natural progression rather than a struggle.

Shared Features Across All Levels

Every story in the series is supported by a consistent set of learning tools designed to make progress smoother and more intuitive:

• Simplified voweling (tashkeel): The Arabic text uses a streamlined system of vowel marks that omits predictable fatha vowels. This keeps the page visually clean while preserving clarity and readability.
• Pre-reading preparation: Each story group begins with an Introduction that provides cultural context, along with a set of Key Vocabulary items that appear across all four levels.
• Professional audio: All versions are recorded by professional Lebanese voice artists. The A1 and A2 recordings are deliberately slower, with clear pauses, while the B1 and B2 recordings use natural pacing to help you transition toward real-world listening.

How Each Level Builds Your Skills

A1 Level: Sound Awareness and Core Meaning

• Layout: A three-column format with Arabic script, phonemic transcription, and English translation.
• Focus: Short, simple sentences and essential vocabulary. The phonemic transcription is a key support at this stage, helping beginners connect spoken Lebanese Arabic to the written form without guesswork.

A2 Level: Direct Engagement with Arabic Text

• Layout: A two-column format with Arabic and English only.
• Focus: Phonemic transcription is removed to encourage direct reading. Sentences become slightly longer, and vocabulary expands beyond the basic core introduced at A1.

B1 Level: Structural Growth

• Layout: A single-column Arabic text, with the English translation placed after each paragraph.
• Focus: More complex sentence structures and richer expression. The layout keeps attention on the Arabic while allowing for quick clarification when needed.

B2 Level: Independent Reading

• Layout: The complete Arabic text appears first, followed by the English translation on the next page.
• Focus: This level features the most advanced structures and vocabulary in the series. Separating the translation is intentional, encouraging you to read independently and rely on context before checking your understanding.

Taken together, the series works like training wheels that are gradually removed. You begin with full support, including transcription and immediate translation, and progress toward confident, independent reading by the final level. Instead of feeling like four separate books, the levels function as a single, continuous path toward fluency.

Stories included

• The Shared House (البيْت المُشْترك): Three cousins from the diaspora inherit their grandmother’s traditional home in Byblos. As they return to sort through the property, differing ideas about responsibility, memory, and belonging begin to test their bonds.
• The Cedar Mystery (لِغِز الأرْزِة): When ancient cedar trees begin disappearing from a protected mountain reserve, a retired investigator teams up with a young forest ranger, uncovering motives tied to heritage, power, and profit.
• The Garden Project (مشْروع الحديقة): In a refugee settlement in the Bekaa Valley, displaced families use traditional seeds and farming knowledge to improve daily life, setting changes in motion beyond the garden itself.
• The Watchmaker’s Secret (سِرّ السّاعاتي): In Beirut in 1943, as the French Mandate nears its end, an elderly watchmaker notices troubling details hidden inside the watches he repairs, forcing him to confront the cost of silence.
• Sound and Image (صوْت وصورة): A wedding photographer and a traditional singer are required to work together despite clashing artistic approaches, as rivalry unfolds during a charged celebration.
• Winter Rain (الشّـِتي): A powerful storm drives strangers into a café in Gemmayze, where shared shelter and conversation blur the boundaries between personal memory and the city’s living history.