What Glyph is
Glyph teaches spoken Egyptian Arabic — the Cairene dialect people actually speak — not Modern Standard Arabic. It is voice-first: from day one you listen, speak, and hold small real conversations instead of tapping through vocabulary drills. The free foundation path is a 43-day sequence that ends with a 90-second graduation conversation, and the paid mode continues with a six-day training cycle built around live AI conversation. Progress is measured by how much of a conversation you can actually carry — what we call your load share — not by XP or streaks. Lessons are written in a consistent Franco transliteration (Latin letters plus numerals), with the option to work in Arabic script.
You can try Day 1 in your browser, browse the Egyptian Arabic reference notes, or join the waitlist for the iOS app.
Who's behind it
Glyph is built by Steven Louis, its founder. Steven grew up in Southern California in a family that is Armenian Egyptian on one side and Coptic Egyptian on the other — surrounded by the language, but unable to speak it. Family dinners happened in Arabic while he listened from the outside; conversations with his grandmother stayed short because she prefers her native tongue. In 2026 he started lessons, hit the same wall every stuck self-studier hits — plenty of vocabulary, no path to conversation — and began building his own daily practice tool. That tool became Glyph. He still uses it to learn, and every lesson ships only after review by a native speaker. You can read the full story in Founding Story and Why I Built My Own App.
Contact
Questions, feedback, or just want to say ahlan? Email hello@terzima.com, or find Glyph on TikTok and YouTube as @learnwithglyph.