What are the differences between the Arabic Pod 101 packages?

Once you sign-up at ArabicPod101, you’ll get a 7-day free trial, which is great so you have enough time to choose between the three plans that are available. You can also upgrade at any time you want and also if you find that you need a break from learning (ie due to a busy period at work) some plans you are able to downgrade. Arabic Pod 101 has a 60 day money-back guarantee so that if you are unhappy for any reason you can contact them and cancel and get a full refund within the first 60 days.

The Basic Plan

The Basic Plan is the cheapest and starts from $4/month(based on longer subscription periods) and $8/month if you just opt for a one month subscription. For this price, you’ll have access to every audio or video lesson ever created by Arabic Pod 101, access to printable lessons, a lesson checklist (so you can easily stay on track of your work), 100 Arabic core words and phrases and basic access on a mobile device. The Basic Plan does not include Line-by-Line Audio Dialogue. The Basic Arabic Pod 101 Plan is a great way of starting to learn Arabic and you can always upgrade at a later date to Premium or Premium+ if you feel that would be more suitable.Arabic Pod 101 Basic Plan

With the Arabic Pod Premium Plan, you’ll have access to the complete Arabic learning website and obviously that will help you learn faster. In comparison with the Basic Arabic Pod 101 Plan, the Premium has everything already included with the Basic and much more. There are 100 core words and phrases available on Basic while there are 2000 on Premium! The basic Arabic Pod 101 plan is great for people just starting to learn Arabic but if you want to turbo-charge your Arabic learning, the Premium is a great plan.

Some of the features on Premium are:

  • Daily Dose of Arabic Lessons – Smaller lessons every day to help you to reach your Arabic learning goals
  • Season Vocabulary – Review all the words from one “season” of Arabic learning in one go. Seasons vary between 5 and 25 lessons.
  • Custom Word Lists – These have been created already on different themes for example a wordlist on different nationalities in Arabic. You can also create your own wordlist and share with others.
  • Interactive Lesson Quizzes – Have you really understood and remembered everything? Here’s a quiz to find out.
  • Voice Recording Tools – Compare your voice to native speakers to see how you are doing pronunciation wise.
  • Vocabulary Slideshow – Learn the key words from the podcasts and lessons with a slideshow.
  • Word Bank – Remember words that come up in your learning and words that you will find useful.
  • Spaced Repetition Flashcards – Smart flashcards at regular intervals to improve your Arabic learning. This is especially useful as Arabic uses a different alphabet to English.
  • Arabic Audio Dictionary
  • Grammar Bank

In terms of Premium and Premium+, there is lot that is included in both plans. For example, the access to a Arabic dictionary, which could be very handy. There is also a line-by-line audio transcript of all the Arabic podcasts. You can also compare your voice to a native Arabic speaker with the Pronounce and Accent review. Pronounce and Accent review is when you press the microphone button on the vocabulary list. You then get a popup window which you will need to enable Adobe Flash to use.

Arabic Pod 101 Pronounce and Accent Tool

Premium+ is the most expensive package on Arabic Pod 101 and has a few advantages that the standard Premium one doesn’t have. It’s got a more personalized kind of help and this includes a Professional Assessment. You’ll get a personal assessment by an experienced Arabic teacher, or a Personalized Plan (just for you!) and how you learn languages. Premium+ also wants to test you and see what your current level is to work out how you can best improve your Arabic.

If you have an interest in one specific topic, you can learn more Arabic vocabulary related to that topic which would be ideal for you. The 1-on-1 Instruction is probably the best bonus feature that comes with this plan, being able to ask questions and ask for help from a real teacher can be very important when learning Arabic, especially as it can be quite confusing at the beginning.

I think that the Premium version of Arabic Pod 101 is probably the best, given the amount of attention and material that there is. If you want to splurge out or have a discount code, then I’d go for the Premium+.