Ten levels, international standards.

Recognise Arabic letters in all their forms (initial, medial, final); distinguish similar sounds (س/ص, ت/ط, ه/ح) and short vs. long vowels; pronounce letters, syllables and simple word-stress correctly.

Practise the difficult articulation points (ع، غ، ض), basic Naskh handwriting, and reading fully-vocalised three-letter words.

Understand and produce very familiar phrases that meet concrete needs (greetings, self-introduction, asking the time, numbers); interact simply when the other person speaks slowly and clearly.

Distinguish masculine and feminine in pronouns and nouns; use the simple nominal sentence (أنا طالب، هذا كتاب); use common Arabic greetings.

Understand the main points of familiar topics (family, hobbies, shopping); link phrases together to tell a short story or describe an experience, dream or ambition.

Frequent use of the past and present tense; basic connectors (و، ثم، فـ، لكن); recognise simple iḍāfa structures (كتاب المعلم).

Understand texts written in clear, standard language on general topics (simple news reports, light opinion pieces); give a simple opinion with justifications and explanations.

Introduce the naṣb and jazm particles (لن، لم، أن); use the complete verbal sentence (verb, subject, object); read partially-vocalised contemporary Arabic newspapers.

Understand long and demanding texts and read between the lines; express yourself fluently and spontaneously without obviously searching for words; use the language flexibly for social, academic and professional purposes.

Read unvocalised contemporary novels and stories; write analytical essays; understand common morphological patterns (awzān) to infer word meanings through derivation (ishtiqāq).

Produce clear, well-structured and detailed texts on complex subjects, with controlled organisation and cohesion; understand common Arabic dialects, aware of the difference between Fuṣḥā and colloquial without confusing them.

Precisely distinguish synonyms; employ simple metaphor and metonymy in writing; fully follow formal speeches and contemporary intellectual and political symposia.

Understand the structure of the classical Arabic sentence (fronting and delaying, separation and connection); read and understand intellectual, historical and literary texts up to the 4th Hijri century (e.g. al-Jāḥiẓ, Ibn Qutayba).

Study naḥw structurally and in depth (marfūʿāt, manṣūbāt, majrūrāt); study the classical Arabic dictionaries (Lisān al-ʿArab, al-Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ) and how to search them by root.

Write rigorous scholarly research and articles in high-level heritage or academic Arabic, entirely free of non-native style and structure; understand the linguistic structure of religious texts (Hadith, advanced tafsīr) and juristic-legal texts.

Study rare morphological patterns; master ṣarf (iʿlāl and ibdāl); grasp the beginnings of balāgha — the difference between literal meaning and classical stylistic metaphor.

Read the foundational heritage books, handle old manuscripts and decode their scripts and scholarly terms; critique linguistic styles and discuss the grammatical disputes between the old schools (Basran and Kufan).

Study comparative grammar between the schools; read advanced tafsīr and fiqh (e.g. al-Zamakhsharī's al-Kashshāf for its rhetoric); begin to understand the linguistic and structural makeup of pre-Islamic and mukhaḍram poetry.

Possess the linguistic instinct (salīqa) that lets you savour a literary or Quranic text and unpack its rhetorical inimitability; improvise, deliver oratory, and debate intellectually and linguistically with high eloquence; produce scholarly editions of manuscripts or author works in philology.

Full command of the three balāgha sciences (maʿānī, bayān, badīʿ), of prosody and rhyme (ʿarūḍ and qawāfī), and of philology (fiqh al-lugha — synonymy, homonymy, comparative Semitic history).