Thursday, January 12, 2012

IMPROVE YOUR WRITING AND READING

Improve Your Reading & Writing

·        Now you know how to identify and write the first 7 letters
·        But, depending on which other letters these 7 connect to, the script can look slightly different, as you may have noticed from some exercises

·        So let’s take a look at a few examples and try to figure out what letters we’re looking at and how to figure it out

كلا لا وزر
·        Sometimes the Aleph is curved like you see twice in the example above
This happens when the letter ل (Laam; English “L”) comes before it

با تا ثا جا حا خا
دا ذا را زا
سا شا صا ضا طا ظا عا غا فا قا كا
لا ما نا
وا
ها يا
·        Here is the Aleph with each letter of the alphabet coming before it
Notice that not all letters connect to the letter following
There will be a small gap; notice the size of the gap

·        Also notice that two letters (ط and ظ) already have a line as part of their body
Careful not to confuse this for an Aleph

ثمانية
ثـمانية
·        The bodies of Baa, Taa and THaa are sometimes written like a semicircle
Notice the THaa in the first word above
The second word is exactly the same except that the THaa has been written normally (we exaggerated the connection a bit, though)

تمام
بماء
·        The same goes for Baa and Taa
This semicircle style is optional
It looks nice, though
And it only happens when the following letter is م (Meem; English “M”)

ثمانية
·        Notice the last letter in the word above
It’s a Taa! Notice the two dots on top!
Taa is one of only 2 letters with 2 dots on top
The other letter is ق (Qaaf; English “Q”) and this is NOT a Qaaf

·        This is actually kind of complicated
This letter is both a Taa and a Haa (not the Haa we learned about in this lesson; another Haa)

·        Sometimes you pronounce it like Taa, and sometimes like Haa

·        We’ll talk more about this when we talk about Haa
But basically, a Taa can look like this
This only happens at the end of words
You’ll never see this in the beginning or middle of a word, guaranteed

بج
بجج
·        Notice the beginnings of both of the above words
In the first one, everything looks normal
But in the second one, the Baa is stacked on top of the first Jeem

·        This can only happen with the letters Jeem, Haa, and KHaa
It happens when any letter comes before them in the beginning of a word

·        Let’s say we have a Haa as the first letter
Then we have a Jeem
You are allowed to stack the Haa on top of the Jeem

·        And if after the Jeem there’s another Jeem, for example
then you can even stack the first Jeem on the second one
to get 3 levels of stacking

·        This often looks nice
But usually one level is more than enough
And most Arabic computer fonts won’t let you do more than one level
And they only do stacking with certain letters before the Jeem, Haa or KHaa

بجج
·        In the example above, the dot of the stacked Baa is in the same line as the other dots in the word, roughly
But you are allowed to move the dot of this Baa up so it’s under the body of the Baa

محال
·        Here’s another example with a م (Meem; English “M”)

·        This has been an overview of stacking
There’s not much more to it, actually
But there are some small rules that we didn’t cover here
But nobody follows them anyways

·        Stacking is taught in grade 8 in many Arab countries

ARABIC LETTER JEEM.HAA.KHAA

The Letters Jeem, Haa, KHaa

·        The next letters are Jeem, Haa and KHaa


ج

ح

خ

·        We are grouping these letters together because their bodies are the same; only the dots are different

·        Jeem corresponds to the English J
Haa corresponds somewhat to the English H
KHaa corresponds somewhat to the combination KH

Listening & Pronouncing

·        Jeem corresponds exactly to the English J, like in the word “Jet”

·        Haa is like H except it sounds very deep and it comes from the middle of the throat
In English, when you pronounce H, your breath starts from the middle of your mouth
But in Arabic, your breath starts from the middle of your throat which makes it sound very deep and throaty
In the diagram below, the Haa comes from below the vocal chords, near the area labelled Trachea
http://www.doctorspiller.com/images/OralAnatomy/Oropharynx2.jpg

·        The letter KHaa doesn’t really have an equivalent sound in English
But when we need to represent this sound from other languages, we use the combination KH or CH
Like the German name “Johann Sebastian Bach
In the diagram above, KHaa comes from above the vocal chords, near the area labelled Larynx

ج
jet
ح
خ
Bach

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear in the following recordings
Try to identify all instances of Jeem, Haa and KHaa


Answer [1 Jeem, 1 Haa]

Answer [1 KHaa]

Answer [1 Haa]

Answer [1 Jeem, 1 KHaa]

Answer [1 Jeem, 1 Haa]

Reading

·        Jeem, Haa and KHaa each have the same body
Their body is quite unique so we don’t need to compare it to other letters, really
It’s an angle on top of a big loop

end
middle
beginning
by itself
ـج
ـجـ
جـ
ج
ـح
ـحـ
حـ
ح
ـخ
ـخـ
خـ
خ

·        Jeem has one dot underneath its body
Haa has no dots at all
and KHaa has one dot on top of the body

·        Careful not to confuse the ج with the ب; they both have one dot underneath the body

·        Careful not to confuse the خ with other letters; many, many letters have one dot on top of their body

·        Use the shape of the body (an angle) to identify these three letters

·        Exercise: how many Jeem, Haa and KHaa do you see in the following sentences?

اولئك آبائي فجئني بمثلهم          اذا جمعتنا، يا جرير، المجامع
Answer [4 Jeem, 0 Haa, 0 KHaa]

ثمانية حجج
Answer [2 Jeem, 1 Haa, 0 KHaa]

خَليلِيَ كُفا لا تَلُوما مُتَيَماً          لا تَقْتَلاَ صَباً بِلَوْمِكُما ظُلما
Answer [0 Jeem, 0 Haa, 1 KHaa]

Writing

·        Exercise: copy the following words 3 times each

حاجب
حَبَثَ

REVIEW AND PRATICE

Review 1

·        Arabic is read from right to left
·        The alphabet has 29 letters
·        Basically all the letters are consonants

ث
ت
ب
TH like in “bath”
soft T
B

·        Vowels are not written, but they are pronounced of course
·        There are 3 of them and they are little ticks on top or underneath a letter
·        If a letter has a vowel on top / underneath it, it means the vowel come after that letter

بَ
BA

·        Arabic also has 3 long vowels
·        These ARE part of the alphabet
·        Each long vowel matches a short vowel and makes it sound longer (about twice the length of the short version)

بَا
BAA

·        Words are made up of a group of letters connected to each other
·        Some letters, though, can’t connect to the following letter
·        So there will be a very small space between that letter and the next one
·        Each letter is made of a body and maybe some dots
·        The body of each letter has 4 forms
o   when it’s by itself
o   when it’s in the beginning of a word
o   when it’s in the middle of a word
o   when it’s at the end of a word

End
Middle
Beginning

ـا
ـا ـ
ا ـ
ا
ـب
ـبـ
بـ
ب
ـت
ـتـ
تـ
ت
ـث
ـثـ
ثـ
ث

·        The connection lines you see in the table above are exaggerated
·        Connection lines are usually extremely tiny
·        Letters are usually recognized by the number and position (above/below) of the dots, and certain qualities of the body (like loops, angles, lines)

Practice

·        How many letters and vowels do you recognize in the following recordings? You might need to listen to each a dozen times or more


·        How many letters and vowels do you recognize in the following texts?

جَرَحاتُ اللِسانِ لَها التِيامُ          وَلا يَلْتامُ ما جَرَحَ اللِسانُ
Answer [10 Aleph, 0 Baa, 3 Taa, 0 THaa, 8 Fatha]

فَقُلتُ ءَيا رَباهُ ءَوَلُ سُؤلَتِي          لِنَفسِيَ لَيْلى ثُمَ ءَنتَ حَسِيبُها
Answer [3 Aleph, 2 Baa, 3 Taa, 1 THaa, 13 Fatha]

·        Copy each of the below and try to pronounce them

ثابَتَ
ثَبَتَ


ARABIC VOWEL/FATHA

The Arabic Vowel “Fatha”

·        The Arabic alphabet has 29 letters
These are mostly consonants

ب

·        Vowels are NOT part of the alphabet
They are little symbols placed on top or underneath each letter

بَ

·        If a consonant has a vowel on top of it or underneath it, it means the vowel comes after the consonant

بَ = ب + َ

·        You will almost never see vowels written on paper
You pronounce them, of course (because you can’t talk without vowels), but you don’t write them

·        These are the only places you’ll see vowels written:
o   children’s books
o   religious texts
o   poetry

·        But if we ask you to read Arabic on this website, we will include the vowels
That’s because you need to know Arabic grammar before you can read without seeing the vowels

·        Arabic has only 3 vowels
Let’s look at the first one in this lesson

The “Fatha” Vowel

·        The first vowel is called Fat-ha
It looks like a sloped tick and it goes right on top of a letter


َ

·        Fatha is the A vowel in Arabic
Actually, Fatha sounds like a short U (like in the word “cup”)

·        What do you think the following words will sound like?
Click on the words to hear them



·        Remember that the letter Aleph is used to stretch the A sound
Actually, Aleph is used to stretch the Fatha vowel and make it into a long vowel

·        Arabic has 3 short vowels and 3 long vowels
Fatha is the first short vowel and Aleph is the first long vowel
Each long vowel corresponds to a short vowel (it makes the short one longer)
Aleph makes Fatha longer

·        Exercise: how many Fatha’s do you hear in the following?
And how many Alephs?

·        Exercise: how many Fatha’s do you see in the following?

قَالَ لِفِتْيَانِهِ اجْعَلُوْا بِضَاعَتَهُمْ
وَرَاوَدَتْهُ الَتِيْ هُوَ فِيْ بَيْتِهَا

·        Answers: [7, 8]

·        Some pointers
o   You will never see a vowel on top or underneath an Aleph because Aleph is not a consonant; it is a long vowel
o   The letter before an Aleph MUST have a Fatha because Aleph is a long vowel for Fatha

·        Exercise: copy the words below and put a Fatha on each letter

ظهر
بلغ
قال
تجاهل