The road to learn Arabic letters for the Quran or general purposes starts as the best way to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners. To be clear, the term Alphabet isn’t correct to describe basic Arabic letters as the Arabic language follows a very different writing system called Abjad.
Abjad or learn Arabic letters of the Arabic are composed only of consonants. Each symbol or glyph stands for a consonant letter. And vowels can be marked usually while speaking, not writing. Among the most common languages which use the Abjad system are Arabic and Hebrew.
The Arabic Alphabet consists of 28 letters. 25 are consonants, and three are long vowels, (Alif, waw, yeh), but other letters are short vowels.
First, let us distinguish between the letters of the basic Arabic alphabet and their sounds, and know the best way to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners.
Sound is how the letter is pronounced through the vocal cords, while letter defines the shape. And to learn Arabic letters, you should learn both the letters’ shapes and sounds, which is a little challenging in the beginning.
But what is the first step to start with to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners?
1. Don’t learn isolated letters.
If you start to learn Arabic letters names, probably the first thing you think of is looking for an alphabet table:
Though this way will teach beginners basic Arabic letter shapes, it won’t fix them in your mind. Arabic letter shapes differ according to their position in the word. And most words have two or three forms.
Let’s take the word س as an example and notice how its shape changes in those three words below
سلام——— at the first of the word
مسلم———-at the middle of the word
جلس———–at the end of the word
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In most cases, the basic Arabic letters are similar in shape at the beginning and the middle of the word. But it differs a little bit in the end.
So, we encourage you to learn words, not isolated letters. Words will show you how the shape of letters is morphed according to their position.
What about the pronunciation of the letters?
There is no better way to learn pronunciation than listening and speaking the language. You can listen to Arabic words and try as hard as possible to copy the instructor.
In general, basic Arabic letters have been categorized into three groups in terms of pronunciation difficulty.
Easy Arabic alphabet
Those letters have the same pronunciation as English letters, you can notice Arabic is written horizontally from right to left, but English written the opposite way from left to right. Also, Arabic numbers are written the opposite.
Many students ask about how I can learn Arabic alphabet.
by this table and easy way you can memorize and learn Arabic alphabet easily.
Arabic letter |
Parallel in English | example |
أ | Long A sound | أرنب |
ب | B | برق |
ت | T | توت |
ث | TH | ثعبان |
ج | J | جمر |
د | D | درب |
ذ | dh | ذئب |
ز | Z | زهرة |
س | S | سمكة |
ش | Sh | شجرة |
ف | F | فيل |
ك | K | كرسي |
ل | L | ليل |
م | M | ملح |
ن | N | نجمة |
ه | H | هدهد |
و | W/U | ورد |
ى | I/E/Y |
يد |
Medium
Those basic Arabic letters have some similarities in pronunciation with English ones. Yet, they are somewhat hard to pronounce.
ر |
Similar to R |
ريشة |
ح | Similar to H |
حصان |
ص | Similar to S |
صقر |
ض | Similar to D |
ضفدع |
ط | Similar to T |
طائرة |
ظ | Similar to Z |
ظرف |
Difficult
Those are four letters: خ…ع..غ..ق. And they’re hard to pronounce because they have no parallel in English.
To know how the letters are pronounced, you’ve two options:
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listening to the recordings of an instructor with full attention to how he pronounces words and repeat after them
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Learning the science of morphology will crack open the language for you.
Notes about arabic alphabet for beginners
1.Basic Arabic letters are connected in the word with no gap separating them, learn Arabic alphabets to write from right to left and also, read from right to left, in contrast to the English alphabet.
Some letters are disjointed regardless of what precedes or comes after them. For example, alif أ. Its shape is fixed in the beginning, middle, and end of the word. Example: أرى/ رأى/ قرأ.
2. Put easy Arabic Alphabets into action
Don’t waste a huge amount of time to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners in a theoretical, abstract way. Alphabets are just the cement of the language, but they are not the building. They give you the foundation to learn Arabic alphabet and memorize Arabic vocabulary.
In other words, letters are nothing without words, and words are meaningless without a sentence or context. Thus, the best way to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners is to see them in words.
For example, the word حصان (horse) consists of 5 letters, but each of them separately doesn’t produce a picture in your mind. Yet all of them combined to create an image of a large animal with four legs that people ride on or use for carrying things or pulling vehicles.
To conclude, the best way to learn Arabic alphabet for beginners without forgetting is to repeatedly see them in use.
The more you see them in a real context, the more their shape and pronunciation stick to your mind.
In this step, listening is much more important than reading. When listening, your ear makes a correlation between the letter and its sound. That doesn’t occur while reading. You have to understand morphology to know how the word is pronounced with reading.
You can learn more about Morphology of Arabic language.
3. Practice the language
After you’re exposed to a word, let’s say حصان whether, in a record or story, it’s your role to memorize it. Remember, we save words, not isolated alphabets. This is the best way to become fluent in Arabic writing and learn how to read and write.
So How can I learn Arabic alphabet?
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By spelling it at least three times. Repeat after the instructor and try to produce the word ح through your throat. It’s not necessary to copy him/her accurately, but practice makes a difference over time.
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Write it in your note or WordPad. Personally, I suggest using the traditional ways like a pen instead of typing on the computer. At least at the initial stage of learning the easy Arabic alphabet.
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You can be a little unfamiliar with writing Arabic as letters are connected, not separated, but you get used to it with constant repetition.
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Frequently asked questions.
Is the Arabic alphabet easy to learn?
Yes, learning the Arabic alphabet for beginners is quite simple and in our institute Fluentarabi you will learn in an efficient way. Our program will help you to learn reading and writing arabic as soon as possible.
Let’s shorten the learn Arabic alphabet journey for you, you make your road to learning the Arabic alphabet and practice them in a very simple and interactive way with the help of Arabic native speakers who graduated from Al-Azhar University.
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learn Arabic alphabet is a leading international online institute that offers Arabic, Quran, and Islamic studies for all ages with a lot of satisfied students in the USA, UK, UAE, Australia, and Canada, and with native experts and qualified male and female tutors from Egypt, who are graduated from Al- Azhar University.Try this course for free. If you liked the trial session, you are free to continue further.