Let us read Arabic 1!

1- Alif

The first letter is called "Alif" . This letter's basic sound is a long "aa".

أ

What are the different forms of this letter?

Alone	End	Middle	Beginning	The letter
ا	ـــا	ــــا	ــــا	أ

Some notes about this letter:

1- Some Arabic teachers group some letters in one group and call it “selfish letters”. Don’t laugh, that is not the linguistic name, it meant to help the students to remember some characteristics of some letters. So, why do we call this letter a selfish letter?
Because it only accepts to be attached from one side, from the Right side not the left side. Let us see how it will look like when it is attached and how it is selfish:

سـامي	ــــا
عـاطِف	ــــا

2- This letter has two forms
1- A consonant form or “hamza" ء:The hamza is a glottal plosive Examples: Notice the sound of the Hamza in the following Arabic names: the alif letter is highlighted with red colour.

English transliteration	Arabic	The letter
Ahmad	أحْمَد	أ
Amal	أمَل	أ

2- A vowel form ا aa (a long A or an extended 'alif ).

The vowel form can appear at the middle or the end of words, but never at the beginning. It generally sounds like aa in (father).

Examples: Notice the sound of the “ alif” and the shapes in different positions in a word: the alif letter is highlighted with red colour

English transliteration	Arabic	The letter
Samy	سامي	ــا
Sama	سَما	ــا

Did you try to write it? If not, it is better to do it now before we move to the second letter
2- Be:

The equivalent English letter is B. It is pronounced like "b" in a word like " big" .To write Be:, start at the right tip of the letter, write that curve to the left and finally place the dot underneath. Dots always come last.

ب

What are the different forms of this letter?

Alone	End	Middle	Beginning	The letter
ب	ــب	ـــبـ	بــ	ب

Notice the pronunciation of the Baa in some words:

Transliteration	Arabic	The letter	ب
Basma	بـسْمَة	بــ	Beginning
Laban	لَبـن	ـــبـ	Middle
Kalb	كَلْب	ــب	End

Now let us try to read a word:

Meaning	Transliteration	Arabic word
Door	baab	بـاب

Congratulation! You have now your first word in Arabic, if you did not get it correct, don’t worry just go through the above explanation again.

3- Te:

The equivalent English letter is T. Does not it look like the smiley face? It looks quite similar to Be:, except there are two dots on top instead of one dot beneath the letter

ت

What are the different forms of this letter?

Alone	End	Middle	Beginning	The letter
ت	ــت	ـــتـ	تــ	ت

Meaning	transliteration	Arabic	The letter	ت
Fig	teen	تـين	تـ	Beginning
Book	kitab	كِتـاب	ـــتـ	Middle
House	beet	بيت	ــت	End

Notice the pronunciation of the Baa in some words

Try! Try to recoginise the letters in the above words that we have explained today!

4- The: - se:

It's almost the same as Taa, but there are three dots on top. You will find that it meshes the same way, too. It's pronounced like the TH in "think". But notice that the common way of pronouncing this letter in Egypt is like " se: "

ث

What are the different forms of this letter?

Alone	End	Middle	Beginning	The letter
ث	ــث	ـــثـ	ثــ	ث

Notice the pronunciation of the Baa in some words:

Meaning	transliteration	Arabic	The letter	ث
second	san’ya	ثانْية	ثـ	Beginning
triangle	musal’las	مُثلث	ــثـ	Middle
triangle	musal’las	مُثلث	ــث	End

أغنية الأرقام Numbers

The Alphabets

Brief introduction about the Arabic Alphabet
The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The Arabic alphabet has 28 basic letters. Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots above or below their central part. Arabic is written from Right to Left. Some of the letters in Arabic don’t exist in English and vice versa. You shouldn’t worry if you can’t pronounce them the right way, because there are always close pronunciations and you still can be understood.
Arabic letters should be written connected to each other. The Arabic alphabet letters have up to 3 forms or shapes; each letter takes a form depending on its position in the word. A letter has a form at the beginning of the word, in the middle of the word and at the end of the word; some letters however can keep the same form in one or two positions.

The Arabic Alphabet song