🇦🇪 What Language Do They Speak in the United Arab Emirates?
The short answer
The UAE's official language is Arabic, but English is the de facto lingua franca of Dubai and Abu Dhabi — around 90% of residents are expatriates, so daily life mixes Arabic, English, Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and more. Learning even basic Arabic earns real goodwill with Emiratis.
Worth knowing
- ●Emiratis are a minority in their own country — roughly 1 in 10 residents
- ●Emirati Arabic is a Gulf dialect, close to those of Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait
- ●Government services operate bilingually in Arabic and English
Going to the United Arab Emirates? Say your first words before you land.
Yap gives you a real 30-second spoken conversation in Arabic every day — role-play the café, the taxi and the market with an AI tutor that listens and gently corrects. Four weeks of that beats any phrasebook.