One important item. Talk to people. Make Arabic speaking friends online and in real-life. Arabs are very sweet, they love talking and sharing their language and culture. If you can't find friends, find language-exchange partners on Hello Talk, Conversation Exchange, Tandem, whatever. Lots of them want to learn English or French or Urdu or Chinese etc. Have fun. You should do this, no matter which route you take, once you can introduce yourself. You are not wasting anyone's time.

Step 4: Take it to the next level

The above won't be enough. No one resource is. So you'll have to find what works for you.

Learn to use search

Please learn how to search effectively. There are a LOT of resources for Arabic. Some people have already put amazing resources together. But google is pretty pathetic now (SEO enshittification). Find forums (e.g., reddit/r/learn_arabic) and search there. And do that BEFORE you post 'how to learn Arabic in 3 months'.

Do what you like

I think reading is the best way to learn. But if you hate it, don't do it. Do what you like, just do it consistently. It may take you longer than another person who is happy reading, but it would take you shorter than YOU trying to read and hating your life.

Language exchanges and speaking practice

Hello Talk is great. Find a voiceroom and just talk to people. Fine 1-3 partners and just speak to them. I would suggest getting the VIP membership, it's worth it for the audio transcription feature alone. Also, italki teachers are quite affordable and very good.

Read AND listen

Arabic lacks (to my knowledge) many good paired audio-text resources at the beinner/elementary/intermediate level. Get someone to read for you. If you have Arab-speaking friends or family, get them to read. If you have money, pay someone to read a book you find interesting (I read Prisoner of Zenda this way, mix of language partners, friends, and tutors).

Use religious resources

Quranic tajweed lessons are the BEST thing ever to get pronunciation down pat. They explain tongue placement and everything.

There is an insane amount of muslim content that is simple, clear, engaging, repetitive, and literally designed to be accessible to everyone. Use it. More content that you can ever deal with. I'm sure you can also find Christian and other religious content as well.

Lastly, proselytizers are wonderful language exchange partners. They will happily help you practice if you just talk to them. Chinese evangelicals on HelloTalk were some of my favourite partners.

Grammar

Learning grammar is an adults superpower. It's an amazing shorcut, if you can remain awake while learning it. Just learn a bit, apply it, and keep learning. Don't get stuck in pure grammar either. Learn enough to become as independent of a learner as you can be.

Conjugation

Arabic conjugation is pretty annoying. Memorization is another shortcut. You can wait it out to just absorb all the various tenses and harakaat changes and verb initials and finals. OR you just power through memorizing the basics (the ten common verb patterns in past and present).

Get fluent quick

I have bad news. You can't. Of course, IF you can actually devote 16h a day to learning Arabic for several months, sure. You will learn very quickly relative to the normie student taking a semester-long class or the mosque-class-goer who takes 2 classes a week after Maghreb. But you WILL need to spend time. Just start. Stop looking for the perfect resources, stop thinking ohhh what can I do to become fully fluent in 3 months. Just get on with it, and you'll be fluent before you know it. Inshallah.

Spaced repetition system (SRS)

Lots of people swear by it, including (I hate to say it) most language learning gurus. If you do, too, then find some Anki decks and get cracking. I personally am not a fan, but hey, it works for millions. It'll probably work for you.

Also, I actually really like Glossika. Their lexical-chunk-based approach (in an SRS) gives you a lot of useful phrases and improves your pronunciation (by forcing / asking you nicely to mimic). This is a paid service.

If you really can't learn how to read in Arabic

Start with the Arabius app. And spend lots of time on media consumption and live conversation. Make your own list of key words you need to know and add to it. You'll be ok (much to my annoyance because you could be great if you read!).

Use other languages to learn

If you speak any language with extensive exposure to Arabic (e.g., Urdu, Farsi, Bangla, French) then look up ways to learn Arabic through that language. This is especially helpful for languages that share vocabulary/scripts/aspects of grammar. You save SO much time by starting with someone

Last words

If you have any resources you found suuuuper useful please do share with me! Also if a specific approach worked really well for you and why. I would love to hear more.