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How Arabic Works

Important things you Important things you should know before

you start
should know before you
start

Learn the Arabic Alphabet

Essential reading:
FREE iOS app
FREE Android app The Arabic Language, unlike English, is written from right to left.
Learn the Arabic
Alphabet: The complete
beginner’s guide
Alif intro The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters.
Alif detailed
Arabic is a phonetic language, it is pronounced exactly like it’s written.
Ba
Some Arabic letters represent sounds which have NO English counterparts.
Ta
Tha 19 of them have counterparts in English but 9 of them don’t. ( – ‫ح – خ – ص – ض – ط – ظ‬
Jeem ‫) ع – غ– ق‬
Hha
But luckily, 5 out of those 9 ( ‫ ) ص – ض – ط – ظ – ق‬have 5 Arabic sound-mates ( – ‫س – د‬
Kha
‫ ) ت – ذ – ك‬and these sound-mates have English counterparts.
Dal
In each sound-couple, one represents a soft sound (this one has an English
Thal
counterpart), while the other has a weird gruff sound.
Ra
Zay That leaves us with only 4 letters (‫ ) ح – خ – ع – غ‬that will sound unfamiliar to you.
Seen These letters/sounds scare off a lot of newbies so don’t let them intimidate you.
Sheen

Saad
Daad
How is Arabic written?
Toh
Thoh Arabic is a cursive language. Each letter in the word usually connects to the letter
Ayn before or after (or both).
Ghayn
This leads to three different forms for each letter depending on its position in the
Fa
word:
Qaf
Kaf Initial form: when the letter comes at the beginning of the word. And it usually
Lam connects to the letter after.
Meem Medial form: when the letter comes at the middle of the word. And it usually
Noon connects to the letter before and the letter after.
Ha
Final form: when the letter comes at the end of the word. And it usually connects to
Wow
the letter before.
Ya
Most of the letters are connectable to both sides. But there are 6 letters that never
Arabic words and phrases
connect to the letter after (the letter to the left). They are ( ‫)أ – د – ذ – ر – ز – و‬.
Essential Arabic Basics
All Arabic letters are consonants but there are three letters that also represent long
Essential Arabic words
vowels. They are the counterparts of the English vowels A,E and O
Arabic small talk
Arabic also has short voweling signs known as Al-Tashkeel. These handy little power
Greetings and
Introductions ups or ‘letter accessories’ change the basic form into a voweled form. It’s really easy.
Being understood in
Arabic
Talk about yourself
Family Accents, Diacritics and Tashkeel (all the same thing really!)
Nationalities
The basic Tashkeel are:
Arabic Colors
Relationships Fatha (َ ): an inclined dash written on top of the letter representing an A sound right
after the original sound of the letter.
About Arabic

An overview of Arabic
Is Arabic even a
language?
MSA vs Classical Arabic
vs Egyptian Dialect?
Why learn Arabic?

About this site

e.g. the letter B with a fatha is Ba.

Resources and Downloads Note: A letter with fatha might represent two sounds, not only one. A soft sound like

-Arabic Alphabet pdf

Ba in Bad. Or a gruff sound like Ba in Bath
chart
Oh and you may see the word fatha spelled as fat7a in other resources.

Yep, that is the number 7. This number represents the letter ‫ ح‬in fatha ‫ﻓـﺗـﺣـﺔ‬. You will
also see the number 3 in 3ayn and 3’ayn. Odd huh? The reason is that some Arabic
letters represent sounds which have no English counterparts so numbers are used
instead.

Kasra (ِ ): the same dash but written below the letter representing an E sound right
after the original sound of the letter.

e.g. the letter B with a kasra is Be.

Damma (ُ ): a sign that looks like number 9. It’s written on top of the letter
representing an O sound right after the original sound of the letter.

e.g. the letter B with a damma is Bo.

Sokoon (ْ ): an additional sign that looks like number 0. It’s written on top of the
letter representing stillness/silence with no sounds but the original sound of the
letter.

e.g. the letter B with sokoon is B.

Sun and Moon Letters

The Arabic Alphabet is divided into two groups called the Sun letters (Shamseyyah)
and moon letters (Qamareyyah) based on whether or not they assimilate the letter
Lam (‫ )ل‬of a preceding de nite article “al” (‫)ال‬. An example of a sun letter: al-shams
(The sun) is rather pronounced as a-shams while written as al-shams

Well, now you are ready to dive into learning the Arabic language.

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