ISLAMIC GUIDENCE: 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

· 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

· 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

ISLAMIC GUIDENCE