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

بَثَ	تَبَ	بَ
بَاتَتَ	ثَابَتَ	ثَبَتَ

·        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

THE LETTER BAA,TAA,THAA

The Letters Baa, Taa & THaa

·        The next letters of the Arabic alphabet are Baa, Taa and THaa

	ب
	ت
	ث

·        We are grouping these letters together because the basic shape of the letters looks the same; only the dots are different

·        Baa (ب) corresponds to the English B
Taa (ت) corresponds somewhat to the English T
Thaa (ث) corresponds somewhat to the combination TH

Listening & Pronouncing

·        Baa is easy to pronounce and detect because it’s identical to the English B
Taa is like the letter T, except is sounds softer
THaa sounds like the TH part in the word bath

·        Use the following rule to help you link the Arabic letter shape with the sound:
The word “two” is spelled with a T and Taa has two dots
The word “three” is spelled with a TH and THaa has three dots

ب	bat
ت	bat
ث	bath

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear in each of the following exercises
Try to find all instances of Baa, Taa and THaa

Reading

·        There are only 2 letters with 1 dot underneath the body: Baa (ب) and Jeem (ج)
But the shape of Jeem is completely different from Baa
Jeem has an angle

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب	Baa (ب)
ـج	ـجـ	جـ	ج	Jeem (ج)

·        There are only 2 letters with 2 dots anywhere: Taa (ت) and Qaaf (ق)
They’re on top in both letters
But the bodies of Taa and Qaaf are completely different
Qaaf has a loop

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت	Taa (ت)
ـق	ـقـ	قـ	ق	Qaaf (ق)

·        There are only 2 letters with 3 dots anywhere: THaa (ث) and SHeen (ش)
They’re on top in both letters
But the bodies of THaa and SHeen are completely different
SHeen has little groves and a hook at the end

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث	THaa (ث)
ـش	ـشـ	شـ	ش	SHeen (ش)

·        Exercise: scan the following lines for instances of Baa, Taa and THaa; how many do you see of each?

تبت يدا أبي لهب

بما كنتم فيه تختلفون

الصدقات والذين لا يجدون

يطلب حثيثا والشمس والقمر

·        Answers [3 Baa, 2 Taa, 0 Thaa], [1 Baa, 3 Taa, 0 Thaa],
[0 Baa, 1 Taa, 0 Thaa], [1 Baa, 0 Taa, 2 Thaa]

Writing

·        Baa, Taa and THaa are all written with the same body
The body is a long, horizontal curve

·        The 4 forms of these letters are the same; the only difference is the number and position of dots

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب
ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت
ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث

·        Exercise: copy the Baa-Taa-THaa body 20 times in all 4 forms

·        Exercise: copy the following word 20 times

ثابت

The Letters Baa, Taa & THaa

·        The next letters of the Arabic alphabet are Baa, Taa and THaa

ب

ت

ث

  We are grouping these letters together because the basic shape of the letters looks the same; only the dots are different

·        Baa (ب) corresponds to the English B
Taa (ت) corresponds somewhat to the English T
Thaa (ث) corresponds somewhat to the combination TH

   

LESSON 2 OF LEARN ARABIC

The Letter Aleph

·        The first letter of the Arabic alphabet is Aleph

ا

·        Remember that all 29 letters in the alphabet are consonants
Well, this is not exactly true for Aleph
Aleph doesn’t have its own sound; it is used to stretch the short A vowel to form the long AA vowel

compare the A sound in Bath & Father

the first is a short A and second is a long AA

Listening & Pronouncing

·        Listen to the words below. Each recording has two words that sound very similar except that the first word has no Aleph and the second word has one Aleph. Repeat the words you hear.

	hadatha & haadatha
	suwwam & suwwaam
	jariha & jarihaa

·        Sometimes it’s hard to hear the Aleph when it’s at the end of a word

·        Exercise (easy): how many Alephs do you hear in the following?

	Answer [7]
	Answer [12]
	Answer [9]

·        Exercise (medium): how many Alephs do you hear in the following?
The pace of the reading is now faster

	Answer [6]
	Answer [27]
	Answer [17]

·        Exercise (hard): how many Alephs do you hear in the following?
The pace is faster and the Alephs aren’t exaggerated
This is how normal Arabic sounds

Answer [18]

Recognizing in Text

·        Writing the Aleph is easy; it’s just a straight line

This is how the Aleph looks in the four cases

end	middle	beginning of a word	by itself
ـا	ـا ـ	ا ـ	ا

·        Notice that the Aleph cannot connect to the letter after it
There will be a small gap between the Aleph and the next letter

·        All the letters in a word must be closely connected
The only spaces between letters are the spaces between the last letter of one word and the first letter of the next word
So don’t confuse the small gap after the Aleph with a space between words

·        Aleph is one of 6 letters that cannot connect to the following letter
The other 5 will be discussed later

·        There are 4 other letters that include a straight line
Let’s look at these letters briefly so we don’t confuse them with Aleph

ط ظ ك ل

·        It’s easy to tell Aleph apart from the first 3 letters because they have very distinct shapes. The first two look like a golf club, and the third one has a special squiggle on top
The last one is more difficult, though. Let’s look at the 4 forms for the last one and compare with the Aleph

end	middle	beginning of a word	by itself
ـا	ـا ـ	ا ـ	ا	ا
ـل	ـلـ	لـ	ل	ل

·        Look carefully. You can tell the difference between Aleph and this letter when it’s in the beginning or middle of a word because Aleph doesn’t connect with the following letter, but this one does
And you can tell the difference when it’s at the end because Aleph is just a straight line and this letter has a curve like the English letter J

·        Exercise: scan the following texts and identify all instances of Aleph

قالوا

ولو تقول

كيف كانت صلوة نبيك

فتبارك اسم ربك ذي الجلال والاكرام

·        Answers: [2, 0, 1, 7]

·        Notice that when Aleph comes after the letter ل, it looks like this: لا
The Aleph curves in to the left a little

Writing

·        When you write the Aleph and it doesn’t connect to the letter on the right, start from the top and draw a line downward

·        When you write the Aleph and it does connect to the letter on the right, come in from the right and draw a line upward

·        Exercise: practice writing Aleph by copying the table below several times

end	middle	beginning of a word	by itself
ـا	ـا ـ	ا ـ	ا