Straight answers

Because Modern Standard Arabic is nobody’s mother tongue. MSA (Fus-ha) is the Arabic of newspapers, formal speeches, and almost every Arabic course ever made — but nobody orders coffee in it. Egyptian Arabic (Ammiya) is what people actually speak, and thanks to a century of Egyptian film and music it’s the dialect most understood across the Arab world. If your goal is to talk to people, Ammiya is the shortest path.

More than any other dialect. Egyptian cinema, TV and music have been the region’s default for decades, so speakers from Morocco to the Gulf grew up hearing it. It’s the closest thing Arabic has to a common spoken standard.

No. Every item shows English, transliteration and Arabic script together, so you can start speaking on day one and pick up the script as you go rather than as a prerequisite.

Arabic script is shown on every single word, sentence and verb form, so you’re reading it constantly in context. The app’s focus is speaking and understanding, not handwriting.

Yes — Level 1 is called True Beginner and assumes nothing. Lesson 1 is five everyday words; by Lesson 3 you’re ordering tea and coffee. If you already know some Egyptian Arabic, pick a higher level when you sign up: each level card says what it covers, and there is no test to pass.

A few quick questions at the start: why you are learning (travel, living or working in Egypt, family, school, films and music, or fun), which level to start at, whether you are in Egypt now if that matters, and a daily goal. From that you get a plan with a time estimate for your level, wording on Home that matches your reason, and a daily reminder that says how many lessons are left.

My plan (Me tab) shows each lesson in your plan, how you are doing against it, and starts the next level’s plan when you finish. You can change your answers any time in Settings → How you learn.

Four levels, 40 lessons, and 1,264 words, phrases and sentences — 359 nouns, 355 sentences, 301 adjectives, 175 verbs conjugated across all 8 pronouns, and 8 themed sets. Plus a quiz at the end of every lesson and 29 badges.

The full syllabus is published here.

Every lesson ends in a short real-life conversation between two people, built from that lesson’s own words — ordering at a café, talking about pets, asking the way. Every line has native audio, the Arabic shown right to left with the transliteration under it, and English you can switch on or off.

Play the whole conversation, tap any line to replay it, or use Your turn to take one speaker’s part yourself. Then dialogue practice drills it three ways: pick the reply, pick the meaning, and put the lines in order.

Real people. The curriculum was written, and the audio recorded, by native Egyptian teachers with more than 25 years of teaching experience — 1,789 recordings in the app, one per spoken form (a word that comes back in a later lesson keeps its recording). There is no text-to-speech and no browser speech synthesis anywhere in the curriculum. You’re hearing how it’s genuinely said, including the sounds transliteration can’t capture.

Properly — which is what most apps skip. Every verb is taught across all eight pronouns, in the tense its level covers: past in Level 1, present in Level 2, future in Level 3, infinitive in Level 4.

That comes to 1,400 conjugated forms, and every single one is recorded. In the app you switch pronoun with chips and hear each form.

Short enough for a commute. A lesson is a sequence of topics — nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentences — with a checkpoint in the middle and a quiz at the end. Ten focused minutes a day is a realistic pace.

It’s saved. Review Mistakes collects everything you missed so you can practise exactly the words that are giving you trouble, rather than repeating what you already know.

The audio of your free lessons is kept on your device, and on Pro you can download any level’s audio in Settings → Offline & storage. Progress you make offline syncs the next time you’re online. It is built for a patchy connection rather than a month off the grid: open the app online now and then so the audio stays fresh.

Sobek, named after the Nile’s crocodile god. He is the app icon, and he greets you on the welcome screen.

Yes. Settings → Appearance: Light, Dark or Automatic, which follows your phone. At night the river on Home gets a night sky.

The first time you open a screen, a few short tips point out what is on it. Each set shows once. To see them all again: Settings → Show me around again.

Shake your phone. The app takes a screenshot of the screen you are on, you add a sentence about what went wrong, and it comes straight to us with your app version and device model so we can reproduce it. You can also email support@mashiapp.pro.

ماشي — Egyptian for “okay / got it / that works”. It’s one of the most-used words in the country, and it’s the first thing you’ll understand in a real conversation.

You earn XP for completing lessons and answering quiz questions, plus 100 XP for finishing a level. XP powers your daily goal, your weekly standing and your badges.

A sixty-second round in Practice: as many words as you can, with your high score to beat. Turn on calm mode (Settings → Learning preferences) and it becomes a ten-question round with no clock. Practice also has flashcards, a daily review and Say it back, all on the words you have learned.

Each week your felucca — the Nile boat you customise when you sign up — races the other learners in your class, or everyone on your level if you’re learning solo. Where you finish decides whether you move up a league.

Five tiers: Scarab → Bastet → Sphinx → Obelisk → Pharaoh. Finish in the top 3 of your race and you’re promoted; the bottom 3 move down — though small groups (fewer than 8 learners) never relegate anyone.

29 badges, from First Steps for your first lesson to Living Dictionary for 500 words, plus streak, perfect-score and quiz milestones. Four of them are cities — Alexandria, Cairo, Giza, Luxor — one for each level you complete.

Yes — the streak counts consecutive days of practice.

Yes, and it’s a real one. The first three lessons of the level you pick when you sign up are free, with their section quiz, and stay free for good. Pick Advanced if that is where you belong. Quizzes, streaks, badges, My plan and the race are all included free, plus two practice sessions a day (any drill or game, including dialogue practice), the dialogue in each free lesson, and 15 translations a day.

The free lessons stay with the level you chose at sign-up; changing your starting level later moves your starting point, not the free lessons.

Every lesson in all four levels with its dialogue, unlimited practice on every word in the course (including Say it back with a pronunciation check and dialogue practice), offline audio for any level, and 200 translations a day instead of 15.

Yes. Mashi Family gives Pro to up to six people on one plan, for far less than six separate plans. One person subscribes in the App Store or Google Play, and everyone else joins with a family code from Me → Mashi Family. Each person keeps their own account, progress and streak; the family sees each other’s name, streak and weekly XP.

$89.99 a year (it works out to $7.50 a month) or $14.99 a month, in the US — EGP 2,199.99 a year or EGP 399.99 a month in Egypt — with local pricing in 175 territories. The app always shows your own store’s price before you confirm. Every new subscriber gets 7 days free, on either plan.

It gets you extra time free: a month on the yearly plan, a week on the monthly plan. Enter it on the Pro screen before you subscribe. You pay the normal price with the normal free week, and after your first paid charge your subscription is extended by 30 days (yearly) or 7 days (monthly) at no cost. One code per person, once. On iPhone, Apple may email you to say your renewal date moved — that is the free time arriving.

Any time, in the store you bought from: your App Store subscriptions, or Google Play → Payments & subscriptions. Cancelling doesn’t cut you off immediately — you keep Pro until the period you’ve paid for ends.

Yes. Your progress is tied to your account, so signing in on another device picks up exactly where you left off. Use Restore Purchases to re-activate Pro on a new device.

Yes — Settings → Delete account. Everything is removed immediately: your profile, progress, quiz history, translations and activity. Cancel your App Store or Google Play subscription first; deleting the account does not cancel it.

Teachers: the same, and your students are unlinked. Records of commission and payouts are kept, as payment records must be.
Organization owners: delete from More → Delete account. While the organization still has members, message Mashi to close it first (or to hand the login to someone else at your company); with no members left, deleting the account closes it.
Organization members: deleting your account frees your seat.

Can’t sign in any more? Email support@mashiapp.pro from the address on the account. The privacy policy has the detail.

You share your personal join code, or an invite link that opens Mashi with the code filled in. The student sends a join request, and once you approve it they’re on your roster and can receive assignments. New students land in the class you marked New students join this class, or with your private students.

A student has one teacher at a time. They can leave you from My teacher, and you can remove a student; either way the other side is told.

At class level: class activity (who is practising and who has gone quiet), class skills and class trend. Then a per-student report with period filtering, which you can export and share.

The dashboard also surfaces a needs attention list, so you don’t have to go looking for the students who have stalled.

Yes. An assignment is built from the same Levels → Lessons structure your students see: give it a title, pick any lessons, pick whole classes or individual students, and set a due date.

Open the assignment afterwards and you can see exactly who has finished and who hasn’t started. Only work done after you set it counts. From the same screen you can change the due date or delete the assignment.

Yes. Every class has a chat for the teacher and the students. Phone numbers, emails and links are hidden automatically, the teacher can pin messages, remove a message or turn student posting off, and anyone can mute, report or block. Reports go to the Mashi team.

Yes. Every teacher has a referral code as well as a join code. When a learner who entered your referral code pays for Pro, you earn 10% of that payment, and of every renewal after it. Earnings close monthly; you request the payout on the Earnings screen (once a month) and we send it by bank transfer, InstaPay, Vodafone Cash or PayPal. No minimum. Refunded payments are deducted. Questions about a payout: partners@mashiapp.pro. How teacher referrals work.

Yes — that is an organization plan: a block of seats for a year or six months, on one invoice. Write to partners@mashiapp.pro.

Mashi Pro for everyone in a company, school, club or any group, bought together. You agree a number of seats and a term (a year or six months) with us; you get an owner portal and a join code; you approve who takes a seat. Everyone you approve is Pro while the plan is paid up. The full explanation.

By invoice, outside the app. Each invoice in your portal has a How to pay box with the method we agreed with you (bank transfer, InstaPay or another) and the invoice number to use as the reference. There is no card to enter and no App Store receipt to expense. The renewal invoice appears 30 days before the plan ends; if it is late, members keep Pro for seven days while it clears.

From the Inbox in the owner portal: an in-app chat with the Mashi team, plus one-tap requests for more seats, a renewal or support. Or email partners@mashiapp.pro.

Tap the invite link if you were sent one, or open the app, go to Me → Join an organization, or tap Have an organization code? on the Pro screen. Enter the code and wait for your organization to approve you. You can be in one organization at a time, and once you are in, My organization on the Me tab shows who runs it, how long your Pro lasts, and a button to leave.

Yes. The organization that gives you Pro sees your profile (name, email, age group and why you learn) and your progress, including your level, streak, lessons and quiz scores. You see this before you ask to join. It does not see your chats, your translations or your saved words. If you leave, your account and progress stay yours; only Pro goes.

Yes. On the App Store for iPhone and iPad, and on Google Play for Android phones and tablets.

iPhone and iPad (iOS 14 or later), and Android phones and tablets.