BBC Arabic radio livestream now has a rewind function

BBC Arabic – whether in text, on radio or TV – is an incredibly useful resource for Arabic learners. The Arabic used by the BBC is clear and often seems simpler than other outlets. In part I suspect this is because many articles are translated from English, but also because the Arabic service itself uses the BBC’s straightforward house style that favours shorter sentences and easy-to-understand language.

If you’re a learner, though, you will know how invaluable it is to listen repeatedly to individual segments. Podcasts are an ideal format for this, but BBC Arabic offers only limited programming in podcast format – so beyond this, you were largely out of luck.

Happily, I discovered recently that the BBC website’s livestream for BBC Arabic radio now has a built-in rewind function that allows you to “rewind” and listen back to content from the previous six hours:

This is a small feature, but it is a huge help for learners in particular. Note that for BBC Arabic TV, the same functionality (for a 12-hour period) is also available when watching the channel via YouTube: