Almaany is an online Arabic dictionary  and is an indispensable tool for learners of Arabic. There are a number of languages available including English- Arabic, Arabic-English and even Arabic-Arabic dictionary which is useful if there are terms not translated into your English. What makes it even more awesome is that it categorises technical/specialist terms and takes on board most classical Arabic terms too.

Other features: contextual disctionary, synonyms and antonyms, hardcopies of dictionaries

Nothing beats the accuracy of a good dictionary. Why? Not only are you searching real references but you also get the chance to explore related words (if you’re not careful, you could end up reading the whole dictionary).

Arabic Almanac allows you to search for words by root letters in the actual copy of real dictionaries. What’s also useful about it is that you can search multiple dictionaries at once. This includes Hans Wehr and Lane’s Lexicon.

This is perfect if you need to reference page numbers in your research paper or homework. 

It looks slightly complex when you first open the menu. The way it works is that you select the dictionaries you want to search by clicking on the ‘H’ (if it has a square around it, then it is UNSELECTED- this means the dictionary is closed). You can also organise the order in which you see the dictionaries. Then you search for the word you want by entering the root letter in Arabic or English. E.g. If you want to search for the meaning of تعيين you would enter  ع ي ن or 3yn

Once you click search, don’t forget to scroll down to see  ALL the dictionary results!  Click ‘Menu’ to expand and collapse the list of dictionaries. The dictionaries are colour-coded and labelled. The search results all appear on one page and you can turn the pages of each dictionary separately. 

This tool requires you to:

• know how to use an Arabic dictionary
• know how to identify the root letters of words
• know the forms and patterns of verbs

 This is better than google translate.Why? Because you can see your words in context. This way you can pick the most appropriate word (or phrase!) by reading it in context.

Another useful Arabic-English and English-Arabic dictionary. 

What makes it different? Enter words as they are and it will give you the root letters and its role in a sentence.