Lets Start Learning Arabic

LEARNING THE ALPHABET

The Arabic script seems daunting at first, and some people try to avoid learning it by relying on transliterations of Arabic words. This merely stores up problems for later; it is much better to ignore transliterations and use the script from the start.

Don’t try to learn the whole alphabet at once. If you learn three letters each day and practice for an hour every evening it will take less than two weeks.

Practice writing each letter in all its forms - (initial, medial and final) - , pronouncing it aloud as you write.

After you have learned a few letters, practice writing them in groups of three, in the order they occur in the alphabet. Each time you write a group, drop the first letter from the beginning and add another to the end, working through the alphabet:
alif-ba-ta, ba-ta-tha, ta-tha-jeem, tha-jeem-ha, etc.

Do this once saying the names of the letters, and once pronouncing them as if they were a word:
abata, batatha, tathaja, thajaha, etc.

Once you can do the whole series from memory, you are ready to start learning the language.
This drill can be tedious, but you won’t regret it. Its advantage is that it teaches you the letters in all their forms, as well as those that cannot join to the following letter. It also implants in your brain the alphabetical order of the letters - very useful later when you want to use an Arabic dictionary.

These are a few very basic learn to read the alphabet lessons. The words are mostly in English so you can more easily recognize the shape of the letters. Arabic is written in the opposite direction from English ie from your Right to Left. In the figure below are two letters sh as in sharp and n as in new.

Each letter is written in four forms. For example if Sh comes in the beginning of a word it is written as

If in the middle as in

If at the end as

And if on its own, in a detached form

These are the four forms of Sh and N marked detached, initial, medial and final.

Supposing we wanted to make a word beginning with Sh and ending with N ( ex, to shun somebody) we take initial form of Sh and final form of N to make shn

Now follows the whole Arabic alphabet with the closest English equivalent.

The Next Page is the most Important page in all of stages your will pass in your journey to Arabic word world