MATC and CATC Arabic Text Collections

28/03/2026

New texts in the CATC
I am pleased to announce that the Classical Arabic Text Collection (CATC) has been expanded with the first 5 texts of the next level, which will consist of 20 texts from the collection Muruj adh-Dhahab by Al Mas'udi. In the coming months 15 more texts will be added.
For those who are new to the CATC: the first level consists of 20 stories from Alf Layla wa Layla (Arabian Nights) and has been available online for a few years already.

The texts have once again been selected by Roel Otten and provided by him with glosses and a translation.
Different versions of the text can be consulted on the various tabs:
an unvocalized version
a vocalized version
a version with glosses
a version with syntactic indications
a combined version with glosses and syntactic indications
a pedagogical translation in English

Please share this with as many students as possible. The time we have invested in this is considerable, and therefore our only interest is that as many people as possible benefit from this tool.

link to CATC:
http://catc.pythonanywhere.com

link to explainer page:
https://cronebbj.home.xs4all.nl/CATCIntro.html

27/06/2025

June 2025: new function in MATC
A new function has been added to MATC, with one click you can call up a page with the reference list of 2600 words (TMV). You can read more about the TMV on this page.
What can you do with it? If you are reading a text and you come across a word of which you do not know the meaning (but there is no gloss given for that word on the VocabularyInfo or Vocab/Syntax tab), you can look up that word in the TMV lookup list.
How do you do that? You click on the orange TMV button. In the search window (Search) you type the word you are looking for.
What information do you get then? You get 5 columns: Group (1-26 groups with 100 words, the lower the number of the group, the higher the frequency of the word), English meaning of the word, the Arabic word, the root of the word, an indication of the part of speech (more information about this can be found below).
How to return to your text? If you click the Back button you will return to the About tab of the text you were reading. If you click the back arrow of your browser you will return directloy to the text you were reading and to the position in the text where you were.

Abbreviations used for the part of speech information:
4a, 8a etc.: verb stem IV, verb stem VIII etc.
4m, 8m etc: masdar stem IV, masdar stem VIII etc.
1pa, 4 pa etc.: active participle stem I, stem IV etc.
1pp, 4 pp etc.: passive participle stem I, stem IV etc.
adj = adjective
elat = elative (akbar etc.)
n = noun
n./adj = noun and adjective
n.coll = collective noun

14/01/2025

Dear all,
It has been a while since I added new materials to the Media Arabic Text Collection.
Recentely I have added 3 new Texts containing Short texts:
SHO_018 Health 2
SHO_019 Peculiar 2
SHO_020 Health 3

In total >2500 words in new texts. All short texts, perfectly fit to spend just a few minutes on maintaining your Arabic.

See text of one fragment and translation in comments below.

05/04/2024

Long interview with AJ icon Wael Dahdouh in Arabic, with English subtitles (and interview questions in English).
Wael talks in MSA with some Gaza colloquial elements but not too much.
Recommended for listening. Try to ignore the subtitles.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/talk-to-al-jazeera/2024/3/31/wael-dahdouh-gazas-voice-amid-loss-and-courage?fbclid=IwAR1UA781sa2IHrexczZyQkxJVpKfneKUJA-pOMn7t2sUmrnjCv0HTaUA7MI_aem_AV5nR4vfKwairuiPHnGX5Zm6G3LU2Aa5NCoTUi5t1A062oR2DVRUtvvQooSGIZqTi8suVkCkEE1Je1Y1Ioi7oEn5

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief bears scars of war, echoes resilience globally.

27/03/2024

Dear all,
It has been a while since I added new materials to the Media Arabic Text Collection.
Recentely I have started to add some new Texts containing Short texts, since I had realized that the great number of short texts I have collected from the Al Ahram website in 2015-2016 make up a great collection of short texts that can be used by advanced learners of Arabic either to expand their knowledge of Arabic or to maintain their knowledge.
These short texts are perfect to regularly (daily?) spend just a few minutes on learning or maintaining Arabic.
6 New SHO-texts were added to MATC
These texts are in the advanced level, so not all tabs are filled with information.
I have recently added:
- SHO012, short texts on Health 1 (more texts on this theme will follow)
- SHO013, short texts on Migration
- SHO014 Environment 1, 575 words
- SHO015 Diplomacy, 270 words
- SHO016 Military, 840 words
- SHO017 Environment 2, 720 words
These texts consist of short fragments and these fragments are extremely suitable for maintaining (or improving) your language knowledge with a regular short investment of time. "Ten minutes of Arabic a day".
See a few examples in the reactions below.

this is the description

07/03/2024

March 2024
4 New SHO-texts were added to MATC
Again advanced level, so limited information, see last posting below (February 2024)
SHO014 Environment 1, 575 words
SHO015 Diplomacy, 270 words
SHO016 Military, 840 words
SHO017 Environment 2, 720 words

Dozens of short fragments, extremely useful if you want to maintain your Arabic. 10 minutes of Arabic every day!

05/02/2024

It has been a while since I added new materials to the Media Arabic Text Collection.
Recentely I have started to add some new Texts containing Short texts, since I had realized that the great number of short texts I have collected from the Al Ahram website in 2015-2016 make up a great collection of short texts that can be used by advanced learners of Arabic either to expand their knowledge of Arabic or to maintain their knowledge.
These short texts are perfect to regularly (daily?) spend just a few minutes on learning or maintaining Arabic.

So I decided to expand the subset of 'Short Texts' but in a less time consuming way (for me). Therefore I decided to provide additional texts, but with less information in the various tabs, just as I did in the 'Advanced Level' media texts (see subset Advanced Level Media Texts).

Starting from text SHO012 (letter O and number zero) there will only be content in the following 4 tabs:
- About
- Plain text
- Syntactic info
- Translation

I have recently added two texts in this new advanced format:
- SHO012, short texts on Health 1 (more texts on this theme will follow)
- SHO013, short texts on Migration

I wish the users lots of succes in expanding their knowledge of Arabic.

this is the description

01/12/2023

Beste allen, zien jullie mijn bericht of is deze pagina geblokkeerd?
Ik had wat raadselachtige berichten van FB opzichters namelijk.

Dear all, do you see this message? Or is this page blocked?
I had some strange messages from FB supervisors, that's why I am asking this.

22/09/2023

New text SHO012 Health 1 is now available for advanced users, with less information than earlier uploaded texts.
Explanation will follow soon.

31/08/2023

Working on new Short Texts.
Theme: Health.
بسبب زيكا
طالب علماء أمس البرازيل بأن تراجع سياساتها للصحة الإنجابية على وجه السرعة لدعم النساء القادرات على الإنجاب اللأتي يقلن إنهن يحرصن على تجنب الحمل بسبب مخاوف من فيروس زيكا.

translation: see 1st comment

02/08/2023

Today's fragment of Modern Standard Arabic:
النَّصْبُ بِالْبَتْرِ
كَشَفَتْ ٱلشُّرْطَةُ الفيتْناميَّةُ أَنَّ سَيِّدَةً بَتَرَتْ عَنْ عَمْدٍ يَدَها وَقَدَمَها بَعْدَما ٱدَّعَتْ في وَقْتٍ سابِقٍ أَنَّها فَقَدَتْهُما في حادِثٍ بِالسِّكَكِ ٱلْحَديديَّةِ . وَقالَتْ إِنَّ ٱلْمَرْأَةَ فَعَلَتْ ذَلِكَ لِتَحْصُلَ على تَأْمينٍ قيمَتُهُ ٤ مِلْياراتِ دونْجْ فيتْناميٍّ طِبْقًا لِبوليصَةِ تَأْمينٍ عَلى أَجْزاءِ جَسَدِها .
Translation in 1st comment

01/06/2023

Use the short texts of the MATC (Media Arabic Text Collection) to maintain your language skills in Arabic reading. Just 5 minutes a day will keep you 'current'.
See 1st comment for translation.
حُقوقُ ٱلْمُهَرِّبينَ
واشِنْطُنْ -
نَدَّدَتْ ٱلْوِلاياتُ ٱلْمُتَّحِدَةُ بِٱنْتِهاكاتِ حُقوقِ ٱلْإِنْسانِ وَٱلْإِعْداماتِ خارِجَ نِطاقِ ٱلْقَضاءِ ٱلَّتي قالَتْ إِنَّها تَحْدُثُ في ٱلْفِليبّينِ بِسَبَبِ ٱلْحَمْلَةِ ٱلشّعْواءِ ٱلَّتي أَطْلَقَها ٱلرّئيسُ ٱلْجَديدُ رودريجو دوتيرتي ضِدَّ مُهَرِّبي ٱلْمُخَدِّراتِ.
وَجاءَ ٱلْمَوْقِفُ ٱلْأَمْريكيُّ بَعْدَ إِعْلانِ دوتيرتي رَفْضَهُ ٱلتّراجُعَ عَنْ ٱلْأَوامِرِ ٱلَّتي أَصْدَرَها لِقوّاتِ ٱلْأَمْنِ بِفَتْحِ ٱلنّارِ بِهَدَفِ قَتْلِ ٱلْمُهَرِّبينَ، مُؤَكِّدًا أَنَّهُ «لا يَكْتَرِثُ بِحُقوقِ ٱلْإِنْسانِ».