Levantine Arabic translator

Levantine Arabic, often called Shami, is the everyday Arabic of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine. Parlo translates into it and out of it, so a Lebanese or Syrian speaker hears the way they talk, not a news bulletin. Speak or type in English or any of Parlo's languages, and hear the answer read aloud.

Spoken in: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, with local differences between cities such as Beirut, Damascus and Amman.

How Levantine Arabic differs from standard Arabic

• ق becomes a catch in the throat in the cities: "how much" is ʾaddēsh.
• Everyday words change: shu (what), wēn (where), kīfak / kīfik (how are you, to a man / a woman), hayda / hayde (this).
• "I want" is baddi, and "I don't understand" is mā fhimt.
• French slips in, especially in Lebanon: merci and bonjour are everyday words.

The same phrases, side by side

From Parlo's phrasebooks: standard Arabic on the left, Levantine Arabic on the right.

How Parlo handles Levantine Arabic

1. Choose Arabic (Levantine) in the language list.
2. Type or speak. The translation comes back in everyday Levantine Arabic, in Arabic script, and is read aloud. It works the other way too: speak Levantine Arabic and read it in English.
3. For a two-way chat, open the conversation translator and put the phone between you.

• Parlo writes a general, city Levantine that is understood across the region. Some words differ from country to country, so a Beirut and an Amman speaker may each say one or two things differently.
• Conversations in Levantine use Parlo's own dialect translation, so the answer stays in dialect rather than turning into standard Arabic.

Translations are made by AI and can be wrong, so check anything important. For medical, legal or official matters, use a professional interpreter.