Introduction to Arabic Writing

hey if you're enjoying these writing lessons and want to practice your writing then get even more writing lessons and printable writing practice sheets inside our learning program so sign up for a free lifetime account right now it takes less than 30 seconds just click the link in the description to sign up and start learning in seconds hi welcome to introduction to arabic my name is alicia and i'm joined by hi everyone i'm yava in this lesson you'll learn the basics of arabic writing first let's introduce you to the arabic alphabet the arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters there are three vowels alif the rest are consonants and so on five consonant letters are emphatic or hard versions of other letters they're pronounced deeper in the throat let's talk a little bit about the sequence that they are written in just like how english orders its alphabet in a b c and so forth there is a proper order in which arabic letters are sequenced too there are actually two ways the arabic alphabet is ordered one is called abjet in the other hijab for this introductory lesson just understand that abjet is the older version while the hija is the newer version that's commonly used in modern day dictionaries so if you had to choose try to learn the newer version hijack just like how there are abjed and hija orders of the arabic alphabet there are also two different styles of writing in arabic the first is classical arabic the language of the quran in the classical literature it differs from the other type of written arabic in style in vocabulary some of which is abandoned now the second is modern standard arabic the universal language of the arabic speaking world which is understood by all arabic speakers it's the language of the vast majority of written material and of formal tv shows lectures and so on once again you can think of them as the old in the newer style the biggest difference between these two writing styles is that classical arabic represents vowels while modern standard arabic mostly does not let's try to draw a comparison to english to better demonstrate this point take for example a word like cover in english it's written c-o-v-e-r this is how you would write it in classical arabic in modern study arabic however is customary to omit the vowels so it will be written cvr in modern standard arabic in this case the vowels are merely implied it relies on you to fill in the gaps on your own to come up with the correct word based on context this makes learning arabic more difficult in the beginning but once you become proficient it will be like reading in shorthand let's see what it would look like in arabic take the verb for go in arabic classical arabic will be written like this in pronounced modern standard arabic however would remove the vowels so it would appear like this and be pronounced vow text appear in the quran they are also used though with less consistency in other religious texts in classical poetry in books for children in foreign learners and occasionally in complex texts to avoid ambiguity modern standard arabic is used everywhere else meaning it's much more common so most of the time the vowels would not be written at all the writing style of arabic may require some getting used to because unlike english and other western languages arabic is written in the opposite direction from right to left so using the previous example verb the goes first followed by and then while words are written from right to left numerals are written from left to right instead so please keep that in mind okay now that you know that arabic is written from right to left let's talk a bit about the different forms of a letter as you can see arabic is written in cursive unlike english writing cursive in arabic is not optional it is always written this way where letters within a word connect from one to the next each letter is written differently depending on their position within a word a letter can exhibit up to four distinct forms initial medial final or isolated take the letter for example this letter is written in the initial form when it's the first letter in a word it'll be written like this it'll be written in the medial form when it's wedged between two other letters it'll be written in the final form when it's the last letter in a word and when the letter stands alone it'll be written using the isolated form well done now let's end this lesson by recapping what we've learned in this lesson you learned that there are 28 letters in the arabic alphabet three of them are vowels and the rest are consonants texts using classical arabic are voweled but more commonly everyday arabic is written using modern standard arabic which nearly always has them omitted you also learn that arabic is written from right to left and that there are four forms of a letter the initial medial final and isolated [Music] welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia over the next 20 lessons you'll learn everything there is to know about the reading and writing of the arabic language by the end you'll be ready to dive into the world of arabic literature make your way through arabian cities and really accelerate your arabic study ready to start then let's go the arabic alphabet contains 28 letters and their variations seeing them laid out like this might seem intimidating but the trick is to take it step by step letter by letter don't worry about how hard it looks now just stick with me and in a few short lessons you'll see how easy it actually is i have some really good news for you arabic is largely phonetic this means words are pronounced exactly like they're written also most arabic sounds have counterparts in english we'll use this similarity to english to tackle the arabic writing system let's separate the letters into two types the first type are the arabic letters that have english counterparts and the second type are those that don't in this lesson we learn two letters needed to write the pronoun i in arabic both of them belong to the first type so expect them to be really easy to pronounce ready let's begin we'll start with alif so what sound does this letter make that's easy it's just like it's english counterpart a in the word apple alif is very easy to write it's basically a vertical stick now it's time to take out your pens and pencils we're going to practice writing find some paper and follow along we'll practice writing them so you can get used to the shapes okay here we go alif nice time for the next letter not quite you just saw the isolated version of alif however arabic is a cursive language that means every letter in a word connects to the letter before or after it so every time i introduce a new letter in this series i'll also show you how it's written in all its possible positions let's get to know the different possible positions for a ladder in arabic it's always one of four isolated initial medial or final let's look at each of them isolated means that the letter has no letters before it or after it it's the standard form we learned just a few minutes ago initial means that the letter lies in the beginning of a word so it's connected to the letter after it but has no letters before it are you confused because the initial position connects to the letter to the left of it that's because arabic is written from right to left medial means that the letter is connected from back and front to other letters and final means that the letter is the last letter in a word so it's only connected to the letter before it with the exception of six letters we must learn the four possible forms for all the letters in the arabic alphabet those six exception letters don't have a distinct medial form and are instead written with their final form without being connected to the next letter their initial form is the same as the isolated form by the way the latter we learned today happens to be one of those exceptions that means we only have to learn two forms isolated and final you already learned the isolated version so you just need to learn the final version let's write it alif now we will learn the final letter needed to write the word i in arabic that's noon the noon is pronounced just like the english n pretty easy right it basically looks like a semi-circle with a dot on top remember that this is the isolated form let's write it noon you got lucky with your first letter but noon requires that you learn all four forms let's get them all out of the way at once so we have the initial form for when noon appears at the beginning of a word the medial form for when it appears in the middle of a word and the final form for when it's at the end now try to write all three noon great you've already learned two letters of the arabic alphabet i think you're ready to learn your first arabic word the word you learned to write today is ana this word means i the first alif is isolated because it's at the beginning of the word the second and the third letters noon and alif are connected you may have noticed that the alif at the beginning has a little mark on the top when alif is at the beginning of the word we add the smart to it but it's still the alif sound there's an exception to this rule but you can read about it in the lesson notes and we'll talk more about this mark in a later lesson so don't worry too much now try to write it yourself anna now it's time for carol's tips by now you must be overwhelmed by all the different variations and exceptions and you also might be worried about that weird mark in the word you learned today don't worry you don't need to understand everything 100 by the end of this lesson i'll present the new concept slowly over the rest of these lessons and you'll soon find that arabic writing isn't all that scary have you ever heard the arabic word ab in the next abzadia made easy lesson you learn what it means and most of all how to write it see you there salaam [Music] alain welcome to arabicport101.com the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we learned two letters alif and noon these letters have english counterparts in this lesson we'll continue our study of the arabic alphabet by learning more letters that have english counterparts ready to go well then let's get started in this lesson we learn these three letters note how they all look a lot like each other this will help you memorize them and because these have english counterparts we know for sure that they are going to be easy to pronounce remember the noon we learned in the previous lesson there are two differences between the noon and the three letters we're learning in this lesson the first difference is the number and position of the dots the second difference is that the isolated version of the noon dips beneath the line like this while the three letters in this lesson don't our first letter of this lesson is ba and yeah it makes a b sound you can remember this because the dot is below the boat shape let's study the different ways to write it together now you write it as we studied in the previous lesson there are many forms for every letter in arabic the letter ba has four possible positions isolated initial medial and final let's see the remaining three initial medial final now we'll write them back that's all there is to ba let's move on the second letter you learn in this lesson is another one that looks like bat tap as you can see the only difference is in the position and the number of the dots the pronunciation is like the english tea except you should release your breath with a strong burst of air try it here's how to write the isolated version this letter also has four possible positions isolated initial medial and final let's see the remaining three okay let's write them now let's finish up this lesson with the third letter of this group our final letter is that's like the th in the english word thief pretty easy right that has three dots on top of the boat-like letter written in a triangle-like shape that carries an extra letter so we add a third dot a third dot like three here's how to write the isolated version you're almost there here are the remaining variations of this letter initial medial and final once you practice writing these a few times they won't seem so difficult well done i think you're ready to learn a new word can you read this it's pronounced ab this is the word for father in arabic the first letter is an isolated alif we learned that in the previous lesson then there's an isolated pretty easy huh now let's practice writing it ab now it's time for carol's tips here's a useful reminder for memorizing the characters we've learned in this lesson for the letter ba the dot is below the line and for the letters ta and the dots are at the top be sure to add ana and ab to your notebook we'll be learning new words in each lesson and by the end of the series you will have a very useful collection of words that you wrote yourself in this lesson we met three letters that look alike in the next lesson we'll see three more letters that look alike see you in the next abzadia made easy lesson salam [Music] alan bikum anakarol welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abzadia in the first two lessons we covered the five letters in the arabic alphabet now we're going to take a look at some arabic letters that are slightly more difficult to pronounce i'll try to explain them in a simple way ready to go let's get started in this lesson we'll learn how to read and write three letters that look alike writing them should be easy but pronouncing them is the most challenging part our first letter is jim this one is easy to pronounce it's somewhere between a g and a j depending on the accent for example standard arabic syrian or egyptian in standard arabic and syrian arabic it should sound like the j in the word jam while in egyptian arabic it sounds like the g in the word game they're both quite easy to pronounce though now let's handwrite the isolated form jim here are the initial medial and final versions of jim now we'll write them gene the second letter we learn in this lesson is ha as you can see it looks like the jim but without the dot in the hook but of course it doesn't sound like it ha is the first letter of the second group meaning that it has no counterpart in english it sounds like the sound you make when trying to cool your mouth and throat after eating something very spicy the closest english counterpart to the sound is h the only difference is that it comes from a point deeper down in your throat just like this try it yourself here's how to write the isolated version here are the initial medial and final versions of ha now we'll write them the last letter we learn here is the this letter like the ha has no english counterpart is the sound some people make when they laugh it's also similar to the sound people make when they snore according to phonetic charts ha is pronounced in a deeper part of the throat than ha listen and repeat both have no english counterparts they're a bit tricky to pronounce so let's practice these two letters in some words first a word which has ha is had had means cheek in english and one that has ha is had had means limit can you hear the difference between khad and had it might take some time before you can hear the differences clearly so don't worry about it too much here's how to write the isolated version like its two friends it has three other forms initial medial and final now we'll write them let's learn a word using some of these letters taj repeat after me taj taj means crown that's that in the initial form alif in the final form and jim in the isolated form disconnected from the alif before it because as we learned in the first lesson the alif connects differently now let's try writing it first write the tab the boat connected to the alif the two dots then the jim in the isolated form nice work now it's time for carol's tips you may feel that arabic cursive is difficult and has a lot of rules it might feel foreign at first but you'll get used to it if you start reading written arabic frequently practice writing some words from the letters we've learned so far try the following meaning to succeed jen meaning side hash meaning pilgrimage good job well that's all for this lesson we'll continue next time with a few more letters that look alike don't worry next lesson's letters are very easy to pronounce i'll see you in the next abzadia made easy lesson salaam [Music] welcome to arabicpore101.com the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the previous lesson we introduced three letters that look alike except for some minor differences some were totally different two of them were the first two letters of the eight sounds that don't have english counterparts do you remember how to write them make sure that you feel confident about the characters from past lessons before you move on in this lesson we'll continue by learning two more letters that look alike after that we learn a few more words to add to your notebook ready let's go our first letter is dal it's just like the english d very easy to pronounce and easy to write as well here's the isolated form dal it's a single stroke you start from the top and then form a right angle and that's it done just like the alef we learned the initial form of this letter is just like its isolated form and the medial form is like the final form now we'll write it dal the second letter we learn in this lesson looks like the previous letter dal it's the val note how it does not dip beneath the line we learn two letters in the next lesson that dip beneath the line that's why you should make sure you differentiate between them this letter is like the th sound in the word this do you remember that we learned another letter corresponding to the english th sound it was and it's pronounced as a silent th as in thief this letter's pronunciation is a voiced sound the as in this or that it's pronounced with the tongue between the upper and the lower teeth it's quite easy to pronounce here's how to write the isolated version vel now let's see how it looks like in its other forms as you can see it's just like it's look-alike dal the initial form is the same as the isolated and the medial form is the same as the final if you know how to write dal then you just need to add a dot to write that handwriting time val we'll continue learning more letters next time but for now let's practice using these letters in some new words first up is the word jed it means grandfather that's the gene we learned in the previous lesson in initial form connected to the dal we learned in this lesson in its final form okay now try writing it jed let's start with the jim then connect it to the dal great job let's try another word ita means if we learn the aleph in the first lesson and the zal in this lesson here you can see that little mark from lesson one is now at the bottom of alif and has changed the sound to an e don't worry too much about it for now now let's try writing it by hand either now it's time for carol's tips handwriting is kind of like a signature in every language and no two people's handwriting is the same it's better to learn the basics and the standard form of the alphabet and get used to it first then develop your own style good luck that's it for this lesson in the next lesson we'll meet our next two letters which look a lot like the letters from this lesson salam [Music] ahlan bikum anakaron welcome to the arabicpod101.com easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the previous lesson we introduced some more letters that look alike we've already learned several but do you remember how to read and write them taking the time to review the lessons will be the key to learning how to write in arabic in this lesson we learned two letters that look alike and also kind of look like the two letters in the previous lesson then we'll learn a few more words for you to add to your notebook ready to learn then let's go our first letter is ra its closest english counterpart is the letter r but it's a different sound that must be learned ra it's not too hard to pronounce though right note how it looks like the dal but dips beneath the line make sure not to confuse them here's the isolated form now let's take a look at the other forms just like the alif dal and val the letters in this lesson connect differently the isolated one is like the initial form and the medial version is like the final one now we'll write it the second letter we learn in this lesson looks pretty familiar zayn as you can see it looks similar to the ra but with a dot on top in terms of pronunciation you say just like the english z as in zebra or al jazeera practice saying al jazeera if you want to practice both the sounds ra and zain at the same time it's the perfect word for it al jazeera here's how to write the isolated version zane start from the top div it below the line then put the dot on top done now let's take a look at the other forms of zane you can probably guess that the isolated version is like the initial and the medial is like the final now let's write it zane and that's all wow great job today we continue learning more letters in the next lesson but for now let's practice using these letters in some new words first up is the word that uses two of our new letters try reading it out loud it should be easy it's pronounced jazzar and means carrot the gem is connected to the zane but the ra and the zane aren't connected to each other because they are in medial and final positions now let's try writing it now let's try to write another word it's red meaning reply like when you're replying to an email or message or someone talking this verb uses only two letters and both are written like isolated letters let's write it red the last word we have in this lesson is the verb zara which means visited note how all the three letters in this word connect differently and so they are all isolated let's write it together zara now it's time for carol's tips grouping letters into those with similar characteristics makes memorizing them much easier just make sure you don't confuse them some letters look very much alike the only difference is dots and their position by reading more you'll get used to the difference between the letters and their pronunciation good luck in the next lesson we'll be doing a review of the letters we've learned so far and we'll also give some detailed explanations about the little things we didn't cover in the past lessons for the sake of focusing on writing and pronunciation let's get more in depth in the next lesson salaam [Music] alaikum welcome to arabicport101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we introduced two letters of the first group that look alike ra and zain if you've been practicing i'm sure you're doing a great job this lesson would be a great chance for you to review all the letters we learned so far let's practice together first we'll review the basic rules in this series we've classified the arabic alphabet into two groups the first one is the group of the letters with counterparts in english language the second one is the group of the letters that don't have counterparts in english that means there will be a bit more challenging to pronounce but remember practice makes perfect letters of the arabic alphabet have four ways to connect to the letters before and after them isolated initial medial and final however there are letters that don't follow that rule and only have two forms of connection they are alif wow now let's review the letters we've learned so far in the first lesson we learned alif and nun they are the letters you need to form the word ana meaning the pronoun i first we have alif here's the isolated form and here's the final form alif only has two forms as we've already explained before now let's review noon isolated initial medial and final that's it for the first lesson did you remember that the initial form of alif is the same as the isolated form and the medial form is the same as the final form now let's move on to the next lesson in the second lesson we learned ba first we have ba isolated initial medial final then there is that isolated initial medial final finally we have the isolated initial medial final that's it for lesson two their shapes look like a boat remember next let's review lesson three in the third lesson we learned three more letters that look alike here's jim isolated initial medial final now let's check ha isolated initial medial final finally we have isolated initial medial final that's it for lesson three next let's review lesson four in the fourth lesson we learned dal and val first we have the dal isolated and initial medial and final now let's check the val isolated and initial medial and final that's it for lesson four these letters are two of the six which only have two forms finally let's review lesson five in the fifth lesson we learned ra and zain these two letters also have only two forms first we have isolated initial medial final then there's zane isolated initial medial final and that's the end of our review for the first five lessons did you remember most of them keep practicing and you'll get better in no time now we'll continue with some arabic writing rules to be able to read arabic correctly you also need to master the vowing system of the arabic language vowing signs are marks above or beneath the letter that adds a vowel sound to that letter however vowels in the vowing signs are pronounced shorter than the actual vowels let's see the three basic vowing signs when used with first here's the fatha the pronunciation will now be next this is a kasra this is now pronounced as be and finally here's the dhamma it changes the pronunciation to boo now let's practice writing and pronouncing these basic rowling signs brother sister i ana anta you vowling is very important because it can change a word's meaning for example here are two words that have the same letters but are pronounced differently and have different meanings because of the difference in voweling means hot while means free there are other vowing signs in arabic but they aren't as common as the three basic signs we learned in this lesson we'll go back to them in the next review lesson now it's time for carol's tips the concept of vowing might feel a bit unnatural to non-native speakers however arabic learners need vowing to be able to read correctly especially when faced with new words native speakers don't need voweling because they know the words and how they're pronounced already make sure you master the three signs we learned in this lesson they will help you read faster and more correctly good luck that's it for this lesson i hope this has helped you memorize the letters we've learned so far and get a feel of how the valuing system in arabic works you did a great job in the next abjadia made easy lesson we learned two more letters of the first group that look alike see you then salaam welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we practiced reading and writing all the letters we've learned so far we also learned the three basic vowing signs in arabic from now on we are going to write the words we learn with voweling so get ready let's go in this lesson we'll continue with two letters from the first group meaning that they have english counterparts which is good news for us those are sin and shin let's start with scene sounds just like the english s it's very easy to pronounce let's see how it's written here's the isolated version seen now let's see the rest of the ladder forms initial medial and final let's write them seen the next letter we learn is shin this one is pronounced just like the english in the word shovel this one is very easy as well it looks just like the scene except that it has three dots on top in a triangular formation like the that we learned in lesson two let's write it down in the isolated form sheen now let's see the rest of the forms initial medial final here's how to write them shine note how scene and sheen dip underneath the line when they are in the isolated and final forms just like the noon we learned in the first lesson of this series now let's learn some words using these two letters and the letters we learned before first we have ser meaning secret sin is in the initial form with a kasra beneath connected to ra in the final form here's how to write it sir the next word we have is chariba it means to drink shin is in the initial form with a fat ha on top connected to ra in the final form with the castra beneath then ba in the isolated form writing time shariba now it's time for carol's tips taking note of letters that dip beneath the line and letters that don't can help improve your handwriting the letters we learned so far that dip beneath the line are ra zane in all their forms and noon sin sheen in their isolated and final forms also it's best to practice on lined paper not blank paper for more structured handwriting next time we learn two letters that look alike however they are challenging to pronounce i'll get you through them in the next abjadia made easy lesson take care salam hi everyone this is nora from arabicpod101.com welcome to ask a teacher where i'll be answering some of your most common arabic questions the question for this lesson is how come there are numbers in between letters when people write arabic in latin letters there are many ways to translate arabic you can use ipa din and many other systems in this lesson we're going to discuss a system that has been around for more than a decade now called the franco-arabic franco-arabic is used between friends and on social media arabic learners find it weird when they see it for the first time because it substitutes arabic sounds with numbers franco-arabic uses numbers for sounds that don't exist in english sounds that do exist in english however are spelled with the same latin letters franco-arabic is commonly used for most spoken arabic dialects let's look at the sounds that don't exist in english and how they're substituted in franco-arabic here are the most commonly used ones two is used to indicate any glottal stop which is the uh sound three indicates ein while three with an apostrophe stands for reign five or seven with an apostrophe indicate while seven stands for ha the less commonly used ones are the following four indicates sheen six indicates stop eight indicates cough nine indicates sod and nine with an apostrophe indicates blood as you can see the second group has close phonemes in english respectively sh t q s and d so these latin letters are often used instead of these numbers these numbers were chosen because they look similar to their corresponding letters in arabic look closely can you see the resemblance now let's see what some sentences in egyptian arabic for instance looks like in franco-arabic this way it won't be a surprise next time your arabic speaking friend sends you a text in franco-arabic how are you how are things isaiah i in hasal patience is good which is an egyptian proverb note the sa in sabur and the ha in hello probably i won't show up note the re in reliben franco arabic is very convenient when using phones or computers that don't have arabic installed and it has been very popular for more than a decade now but did you know that many people in social media are starting to lean more towards writing dialect arabic in arabic letters in hopes to keep the arabic alphabet alive and thriving i hope you liked this lesson if you have any questions please leave a comment below and i will try to get back to you as soon as i can and i will see you in the next episode top 10 hardest words to pronounce as you can tell from the title coffee coffee for example you can say i like my coffee without sugar or milk for the word agua the actual standard arabic word is a letter but isn't it up to make it easier to pronounce we use the word we use the letter and sometimes for non-arabic speakers even the letter it's kind of difficult to pronounce that's what make it that's what makes it a little difficult morning i'm always in a hurry in the morning for the word sop lots of people cannot pronounce the letter so and sometimes you mix it with sa but morning sopa is with a sa zangabil ginger zangabil is it yeah it's zangabiel ginger and sometimes people mistake it for ganzaville so please don't make this mistake yeah it's thank you i had to check what a tongue twister for example you can say zangabil ginger is good for cough and if you put ginger with lemon it's even better for cough song what kind of song would you like to listen to i think it's mostly difficult because of the i'm quite busy today and i think it's also because of that turtle sol turtle and sometimes people mix it with anaz did i say it right um yeah i used to take care of a turtle emtahan exam termination of the british occupation in egypt was 1956 rabia spring rabia spring bitmaiser famos spring in egypt is known to have lots of sandstorms maybe rabia is difficult because of the ayah so say rabia ah kharif fall kharif fall or autumn for example you can say balbi's jacket fell harif this is a tongue twister balbis jacket fell harif i wear a light jacket and fall can you say 10 times want to speed up your language learning take your very first lesson with us you'll start speaking in minutes and master real conversations sign up for your free lifetime account just click the link in the description

hey if you&#39;re enjoying these writing lessons and want to practice your writing then get even more writing lessons and printable writing practice sheets inside our learning program so sign up for a free lifetime account right now it takes less than 30 seconds just click the link in the description to sign up and start learning in seconds hi welcome to introduction to arabic my name is alicia and i&#39;m joined by hi everyone i&#39;m yava in this lesson you&#39;ll learn the basics of arabic writing first let&#39;s introduce you to the arabic alphabet the arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters there are three vowels alif the rest are consonants and so on five consonant letters are emphatic or hard versions of other letters they&#39;re pronounced deeper in the throat let&#39;s talk a little bit about the sequence that they are written in just like how english orders its alphabet in a b c and so forth there is a proper order in which arabic letters are sequenced too there are actually two ways the arabic alphabet is ordered one is called abjet in the other hijab for this introductory lesson just understand that abjet is the older version while the hija is the newer version that&#39;s commonly used in modern day dictionaries so if you had to choose try to learn the newer version hijack just like how there are abjed and hija orders of the arabic alphabet there are also two different styles of writing in arabic the first is classical arabic the language of the quran in the classical literature it differs from the other type of written arabic in style in vocabulary some of which is abandoned now the second is modern standard arabic the universal language of the arabic speaking world which is understood by all arabic speakers it&#39;s the language of the vast majority of written material and of formal tv shows lectures and so on once again you can think of them as the old in the newer style the biggest difference between these two writing styles is that classical arabic represents vowels while modern standard arabic mostly does not let&#39;s try to draw a comparison to english to better demonstrate this point take for example a word like cover in english it&#39;s written c-o-v-e-r this is how you would write it in classical arabic in modern study arabic however is customary to omit the vowels so it will be written cvr in modern standard arabic in this case the vowels are merely implied it relies on you to fill in the gaps on your own to come up with the correct word based on context this makes learning arabic more difficult in the beginning but once you become proficient it will be like reading in shorthand let&#39;s see what it would look like in arabic take the verb for go in arabic classical arabic will be written like this in pronounced modern standard arabic however would remove the vowels so it would appear like this and be pronounced vow text appear in the quran they are also used though with less consistency in other religious texts in classical poetry in books for children in foreign learners and occasionally in complex texts to avoid ambiguity modern standard arabic is used everywhere else meaning it&#39;s much more common so most of the time the vowels would not be written at all the writing style of arabic may require some getting used to because unlike english and other western languages arabic is written in the opposite direction from right to left so using the previous example verb the goes first followed by and then while words are written from right to left numerals are written from left to right instead so please keep that in mind okay now that you know that arabic is written from right to left let&#39;s talk a bit about the different forms of a letter as you can see arabic is written in cursive unlike english writing cursive in arabic is not optional it is always written this way where letters within a word connect from one to the next each letter is written differently depending on their position within a word a letter can exhibit up to four distinct forms initial medial final or isolated take the letter for example this letter is written in the initial form when it&#39;s the first letter in a word it&#39;ll be written like this it&#39;ll be written in the medial form when it&#39;s wedged between two other letters it&#39;ll be written in the final form when it&#39;s the last letter in a word and when the letter stands alone it&#39;ll be written using the isolated form well done now let&#39;s end this lesson by recapping what we&#39;ve learned in this lesson you learned that there are 28 letters in the arabic alphabet three of them are vowels and the rest are consonants texts using classical arabic are voweled but more commonly everyday arabic is written using modern standard arabic which nearly always has them omitted you also learn that arabic is written from right to left and that there are four forms of a letter the initial medial final and isolated [Music] welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia over the next 20 lessons you&#39;ll learn everything there is to know about the reading and writing of the arabic language by the end you&#39;ll be ready to dive into the world of arabic literature make your way through arabian cities and really accelerate your arabic study ready to start then let&#39;s go the arabic alphabet contains 28 letters and their variations seeing them laid out like this might seem intimidating but the trick is to take it step by step letter by letter don&#39;t worry about how hard it looks now just stick with me and in a few short lessons you&#39;ll see how easy it actually is i have some really good news for you arabic is largely phonetic this means words are pronounced exactly like they&#39;re written also most arabic sounds have counterparts in english we&#39;ll use this similarity to english to tackle the arabic writing system let&#39;s separate the letters into two types the first type are the arabic letters that have english counterparts and the second type are those that don&#39;t in this lesson we learn two letters needed to write the pronoun i in arabic both of them belong to the first type so expect them to be really easy to pronounce ready let&#39;s begin we&#39;ll start with alif so what sound does this letter make that&#39;s easy it&#39;s just like it&#39;s english counterpart a in the word apple alif is very easy to write it&#39;s basically a vertical stick now it&#39;s time to take out your pens and pencils we&#39;re going to practice writing find some paper and follow along we&#39;ll practice writing them so you can get used to the shapes okay here we go alif nice time for the next letter not quite you just saw the isolated version of alif however arabic is a cursive language that means every letter in a word connects to the letter before or after it so every time i introduce a new letter in this series i&#39;ll also show you how it&#39;s written in all its possible positions let&#39;s get to know the different possible positions for a ladder in arabic it&#39;s always one of four isolated initial medial or final let&#39;s look at each of them isolated means that the letter has no letters before it or after it it&#39;s the standard form we learned just a few minutes ago initial means that the letter lies in the beginning of a word so it&#39;s connected to the letter after it but has no letters before it are you confused because the initial position connects to the letter to the left of it that&#39;s because arabic is written from right to left medial means that the letter is connected from back and front to other letters and final means that the letter is the last letter in a word so it&#39;s only connected to the letter before it with the exception of six letters we must learn the four possible forms for all the letters in the arabic alphabet those six exception letters don&#39;t have a distinct medial form and are instead written with their final form without being connected to the next letter their initial form is the same as the isolated form by the way the latter we learned today happens to be one of those exceptions that means we only have to learn two forms isolated and final you already learned the isolated version so you just need to learn the final version let&#39;s write it alif now we will learn the final letter needed to write the word i in arabic that&#39;s noon the noon is pronounced just like the english n pretty easy right it basically looks like a semi-circle with a dot on top remember that this is the isolated form let&#39;s write it noon you got lucky with your first letter but noon requires that you learn all four forms let&#39;s get them all out of the way at once so we have the initial form for when noon appears at the beginning of a word the medial form for when it appears in the middle of a word and the final form for when it&#39;s at the end now try to write all three noon great you&#39;ve already learned two letters of the arabic alphabet i think you&#39;re ready to learn your first arabic word the word you learned to write today is ana this word means i the first alif is isolated because it&#39;s at the beginning of the word the second and the third letters noon and alif are connected you may have noticed that the alif at the beginning has a little mark on the top when alif is at the beginning of the word we add the smart to it but it&#39;s still the alif sound there&#39;s an exception to this rule but you can read about it in the lesson notes and we&#39;ll talk more about this mark in a later lesson so don&#39;t worry too much now try to write it yourself anna now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips by now you must be overwhelmed by all the different variations and exceptions and you also might be worried about that weird mark in the word you learned today don&#39;t worry you don&#39;t need to understand everything 100 by the end of this lesson i&#39;ll present the new concept slowly over the rest of these lessons and you&#39;ll soon find that arabic writing isn&#39;t all that scary have you ever heard the arabic word ab in the next abzadia made easy lesson you learn what it means and most of all how to write it see you there salaam [Music] alain welcome to arabicport101.com the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we learned two letters alif and noon these letters have english counterparts in this lesson we&#39;ll continue our study of the arabic alphabet by learning more letters that have english counterparts ready to go well then let&#39;s get started in this lesson we learn these three letters note how they all look a lot like each other this will help you memorize them and because these have english counterparts we know for sure that they are going to be easy to pronounce remember the noon we learned in the previous lesson there are two differences between the noon and the three letters we&#39;re learning in this lesson the first difference is the number and position of the dots the second difference is that the isolated version of the noon dips beneath the line like this while the three letters in this lesson don&#39;t our first letter of this lesson is ba and yeah it makes a b sound you can remember this because the dot is below the boat shape let&#39;s study the different ways to write it together now you write it as we studied in the previous lesson there are many forms for every letter in arabic the letter ba has four possible positions isolated initial medial and final let&#39;s see the remaining three initial medial final now we&#39;ll write them back that&#39;s all there is to ba let&#39;s move on the second letter you learn in this lesson is another one that looks like bat tap as you can see the only difference is in the position and the number of the dots the pronunciation is like the english tea except you should release your breath with a strong burst of air try it here&#39;s how to write the isolated version this letter also has four possible positions isolated initial medial and final let&#39;s see the remaining three okay let&#39;s write them now let&#39;s finish up this lesson with the third letter of this group our final letter is that&#39;s like the th in the english word thief pretty easy right that has three dots on top of the boat-like letter written in a triangle-like shape that carries an extra letter so we add a third dot a third dot like three here&#39;s how to write the isolated version you&#39;re almost there here are the remaining variations of this letter initial medial and final once you practice writing these a few times they won&#39;t seem so difficult well done i think you&#39;re ready to learn a new word can you read this it&#39;s pronounced ab this is the word for father in arabic the first letter is an isolated alif we learned that in the previous lesson then there&#39;s an isolated pretty easy huh now let&#39;s practice writing it ab now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips here&#39;s a useful reminder for memorizing the characters we&#39;ve learned in this lesson for the letter ba the dot is below the line and for the letters ta and the dots are at the top be sure to add ana and ab to your notebook we&#39;ll be learning new words in each lesson and by the end of the series you will have a very useful collection of words that you wrote yourself in this lesson we met three letters that look alike in the next lesson we&#39;ll see three more letters that look alike see you in the next abzadia made easy lesson salam [Music] alan bikum anakarol welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abzadia in the first two lessons we covered the five letters in the arabic alphabet now we&#39;re going to take a look at some arabic letters that are slightly more difficult to pronounce i&#39;ll try to explain them in a simple way ready to go let&#39;s get started in this lesson we&#39;ll learn how to read and write three letters that look alike writing them should be easy but pronouncing them is the most challenging part our first letter is jim this one is easy to pronounce it&#39;s somewhere between a g and a j depending on the accent for example standard arabic syrian or egyptian in standard arabic and syrian arabic it should sound like the j in the word jam while in egyptian arabic it sounds like the g in the word game they&#39;re both quite easy to pronounce though now let&#39;s handwrite the isolated form jim here are the initial medial and final versions of jim now we&#39;ll write them gene the second letter we learn in this lesson is ha as you can see it looks like the jim but without the dot in the hook but of course it doesn&#39;t sound like it ha is the first letter of the second group meaning that it has no counterpart in english it sounds like the sound you make when trying to cool your mouth and throat after eating something very spicy the closest english counterpart to the sound is h the only difference is that it comes from a point deeper down in your throat just like this try it yourself here&#39;s how to write the isolated version here are the initial medial and final versions of ha now we&#39;ll write them the last letter we learn here is the this letter like the ha has no english counterpart is the sound some people make when they laugh it&#39;s also similar to the sound people make when they snore according to phonetic charts ha is pronounced in a deeper part of the throat than ha listen and repeat both have no english counterparts they&#39;re a bit tricky to pronounce so let&#39;s practice these two letters in some words first a word which has ha is had had means cheek in english and one that has ha is had had means limit can you hear the difference between khad and had it might take some time before you can hear the differences clearly so don&#39;t worry about it too much here&#39;s how to write the isolated version like its two friends it has three other forms initial medial and final now we&#39;ll write them let&#39;s learn a word using some of these letters taj repeat after me taj taj means crown that&#39;s that in the initial form alif in the final form and jim in the isolated form disconnected from the alif before it because as we learned in the first lesson the alif connects differently now let&#39;s try writing it first write the tab the boat connected to the alif the two dots then the jim in the isolated form nice work now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips you may feel that arabic cursive is difficult and has a lot of rules it might feel foreign at first but you&#39;ll get used to it if you start reading written arabic frequently practice writing some words from the letters we&#39;ve learned so far try the following meaning to succeed jen meaning side hash meaning pilgrimage good job well that&#39;s all for this lesson we&#39;ll continue next time with a few more letters that look alike don&#39;t worry next lesson&#39;s letters are very easy to pronounce i&#39;ll see you in the next abzadia made easy lesson salaam [Music] welcome to arabicpore101.com the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the previous lesson we introduced three letters that look alike except for some minor differences some were totally different two of them were the first two letters of the eight sounds that don&#39;t have english counterparts do you remember how to write them make sure that you feel confident about the characters from past lessons before you move on in this lesson we&#39;ll continue by learning two more letters that look alike after that we learn a few more words to add to your notebook ready let&#39;s go our first letter is dal it&#39;s just like the english d very easy to pronounce and easy to write as well here&#39;s the isolated form dal it&#39;s a single stroke you start from the top and then form a right angle and that&#39;s it done just like the alef we learned the initial form of this letter is just like its isolated form and the medial form is like the final form now we&#39;ll write it dal the second letter we learn in this lesson looks like the previous letter dal it&#39;s the val note how it does not dip beneath the line we learn two letters in the next lesson that dip beneath the line that&#39;s why you should make sure you differentiate between them this letter is like the th sound in the word this do you remember that we learned another letter corresponding to the english th sound it was and it&#39;s pronounced as a silent th as in thief this letter&#39;s pronunciation is a voiced sound the as in this or that it&#39;s pronounced with the tongue between the upper and the lower teeth it&#39;s quite easy to pronounce here&#39;s how to write the isolated version vel now let&#39;s see how it looks like in its other forms as you can see it&#39;s just like it&#39;s look-alike dal the initial form is the same as the isolated and the medial form is the same as the final if you know how to write dal then you just need to add a dot to write that handwriting time val we&#39;ll continue learning more letters next time but for now let&#39;s practice using these letters in some new words first up is the word jed it means grandfather that&#39;s the gene we learned in the previous lesson in initial form connected to the dal we learned in this lesson in its final form okay now try writing it jed let&#39;s start with the jim then connect it to the dal great job let&#39;s try another word ita means if we learn the aleph in the first lesson and the zal in this lesson here you can see that little mark from lesson one is now at the bottom of alif and has changed the sound to an e don&#39;t worry too much about it for now now let&#39;s try writing it by hand either now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips handwriting is kind of like a signature in every language and no two people&#39;s handwriting is the same it&#39;s better to learn the basics and the standard form of the alphabet and get used to it first then develop your own style good luck that&#39;s it for this lesson in the next lesson we&#39;ll meet our next two letters which look a lot like the letters from this lesson salam [Music] ahlan bikum anakaron welcome to the arabicpod101.com easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the previous lesson we introduced some more letters that look alike we&#39;ve already learned several but do you remember how to read and write them taking the time to review the lessons will be the key to learning how to write in arabic in this lesson we learned two letters that look alike and also kind of look like the two letters in the previous lesson then we&#39;ll learn a few more words for you to add to your notebook ready to learn then let&#39;s go our first letter is ra its closest english counterpart is the letter r but it&#39;s a different sound that must be learned ra it&#39;s not too hard to pronounce though right note how it looks like the dal but dips beneath the line make sure not to confuse them here&#39;s the isolated form now let&#39;s take a look at the other forms just like the alif dal and val the letters in this lesson connect differently the isolated one is like the initial form and the medial version is like the final one now we&#39;ll write it the second letter we learn in this lesson looks pretty familiar zayn as you can see it looks similar to the ra but with a dot on top in terms of pronunciation you say just like the english z as in zebra or al jazeera practice saying al jazeera if you want to practice both the sounds ra and zain at the same time it&#39;s the perfect word for it al jazeera here&#39;s how to write the isolated version zane start from the top div it below the line then put the dot on top done now let&#39;s take a look at the other forms of zane you can probably guess that the isolated version is like the initial and the medial is like the final now let&#39;s write it zane and that&#39;s all wow great job today we continue learning more letters in the next lesson but for now let&#39;s practice using these letters in some new words first up is the word that uses two of our new letters try reading it out loud it should be easy it&#39;s pronounced jazzar and means carrot the gem is connected to the zane but the ra and the zane aren&#39;t connected to each other because they are in medial and final positions now let&#39;s try writing it now let&#39;s try to write another word it&#39;s red meaning reply like when you&#39;re replying to an email or message or someone talking this verb uses only two letters and both are written like isolated letters let&#39;s write it red the last word we have in this lesson is the verb zara which means visited note how all the three letters in this word connect differently and so they are all isolated let&#39;s write it together zara now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips grouping letters into those with similar characteristics makes memorizing them much easier just make sure you don&#39;t confuse them some letters look very much alike the only difference is dots and their position by reading more you&#39;ll get used to the difference between the letters and their pronunciation good luck in the next lesson we&#39;ll be doing a review of the letters we&#39;ve learned so far and we&#39;ll also give some detailed explanations about the little things we didn&#39;t cover in the past lessons for the sake of focusing on writing and pronunciation let&#39;s get more in depth in the next lesson salaam [Music] alaikum welcome to arabicport101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we introduced two letters of the first group that look alike ra and zain if you&#39;ve been practicing i&#39;m sure you&#39;re doing a great job this lesson would be a great chance for you to review all the letters we learned so far let&#39;s practice together first we&#39;ll review the basic rules in this series we&#39;ve classified the arabic alphabet into two groups the first one is the group of the letters with counterparts in english language the second one is the group of the letters that don&#39;t have counterparts in english that means there will be a bit more challenging to pronounce but remember practice makes perfect letters of the arabic alphabet have four ways to connect to the letters before and after them isolated initial medial and final however there are letters that don&#39;t follow that rule and only have two forms of connection they are alif wow now let&#39;s review the letters we&#39;ve learned so far in the first lesson we learned alif and nun they are the letters you need to form the word ana meaning the pronoun i first we have alif here&#39;s the isolated form and here&#39;s the final form alif only has two forms as we&#39;ve already explained before now let&#39;s review noon isolated initial medial and final that&#39;s it for the first lesson did you remember that the initial form of alif is the same as the isolated form and the medial form is the same as the final form now let&#39;s move on to the next lesson in the second lesson we learned ba first we have ba isolated initial medial final then there is that isolated initial medial final finally we have the isolated initial medial final that&#39;s it for lesson two their shapes look like a boat remember next let&#39;s review lesson three in the third lesson we learned three more letters that look alike here&#39;s jim isolated initial medial final now let&#39;s check ha isolated initial medial final finally we have isolated initial medial final that&#39;s it for lesson three next let&#39;s review lesson four in the fourth lesson we learned dal and val first we have the dal isolated and initial medial and final now let&#39;s check the val isolated and initial medial and final that&#39;s it for lesson four these letters are two of the six which only have two forms finally let&#39;s review lesson five in the fifth lesson we learned ra and zain these two letters also have only two forms first we have isolated initial medial final then there&#39;s zane isolated initial medial final and that&#39;s the end of our review for the first five lessons did you remember most of them keep practicing and you&#39;ll get better in no time now we&#39;ll continue with some arabic writing rules to be able to read arabic correctly you also need to master the vowing system of the arabic language vowing signs are marks above or beneath the letter that adds a vowel sound to that letter however vowels in the vowing signs are pronounced shorter than the actual vowels let&#39;s see the three basic vowing signs when used with first here&#39;s the fatha the pronunciation will now be next this is a kasra this is now pronounced as be and finally here&#39;s the dhamma it changes the pronunciation to boo now let&#39;s practice writing and pronouncing these basic rowling signs brother sister i ana anta you vowling is very important because it can change a word&#39;s meaning for example here are two words that have the same letters but are pronounced differently and have different meanings because of the difference in voweling means hot while means free there are other vowing signs in arabic but they aren&#39;t as common as the three basic signs we learned in this lesson we&#39;ll go back to them in the next review lesson now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips the concept of vowing might feel a bit unnatural to non-native speakers however arabic learners need vowing to be able to read correctly especially when faced with new words native speakers don&#39;t need voweling because they know the words and how they&#39;re pronounced already make sure you master the three signs we learned in this lesson they will help you read faster and more correctly good luck that&#39;s it for this lesson i hope this has helped you memorize the letters we&#39;ve learned so far and get a feel of how the valuing system in arabic works you did a great job in the next abjadia made easy lesson we learned two more letters of the first group that look alike see you then salaam welcome to arabicpod101.com abzadia made easy the fastest easiest and most fun way to learn the arabic alphabet the abjadia in the last lesson we practiced reading and writing all the letters we&#39;ve learned so far we also learned the three basic vowing signs in arabic from now on we are going to write the words we learn with voweling so get ready let&#39;s go in this lesson we&#39;ll continue with two letters from the first group meaning that they have english counterparts which is good news for us those are sin and shin let&#39;s start with scene sounds just like the english s it&#39;s very easy to pronounce let&#39;s see how it&#39;s written here&#39;s the isolated version seen now let&#39;s see the rest of the ladder forms initial medial and final let&#39;s write them seen the next letter we learn is shin this one is pronounced just like the english in the word shovel this one is very easy as well it looks just like the scene except that it has three dots on top in a triangular formation like the that we learned in lesson two let&#39;s write it down in the isolated form sheen now let&#39;s see the rest of the forms initial medial final here&#39;s how to write them shine note how scene and sheen dip underneath the line when they are in the isolated and final forms just like the noon we learned in the first lesson of this series now let&#39;s learn some words using these two letters and the letters we learned before first we have ser meaning secret sin is in the initial form with a kasra beneath connected to ra in the final form here&#39;s how to write it sir the next word we have is chariba it means to drink shin is in the initial form with a fat ha on top connected to ra in the final form with the castra beneath then ba in the isolated form writing time shariba now it&#39;s time for carol&#39;s tips taking note of letters that dip beneath the line and letters that don&#39;t can help improve your handwriting the letters we learned so far that dip beneath the line are ra zane in all their forms and noon sin sheen in their isolated and final forms also it&#39;s best to practice on lined paper not blank paper for more structured handwriting next time we learn two letters that look alike however they are challenging to pronounce i&#39;ll get you through them in the next abjadia made easy lesson take care salam hi everyone this is nora from arabicpod101.com welcome to ask a teacher where i&#39;ll be answering some of your most common arabic questions the question for this lesson is how come there are numbers in between letters when people write arabic in latin letters there are many ways to translate arabic you can use ipa din and many other systems in this lesson we&#39;re going to discuss a system that has been around for more than a decade now called the franco-arabic franco-arabic is used between friends and on social media arabic learners find it weird when they see it for the first time because it substitutes arabic sounds with numbers franco-arabic uses numbers for sounds that don&#39;t exist in english sounds that do exist in english however are spelled with the same latin letters franco-arabic is commonly used for most spoken arabic dialects let&#39;s look at the sounds that don&#39;t exist in english and how they&#39;re substituted in franco-arabic here are the most commonly used ones two is used to indicate any glottal stop which is the uh sound three indicates ein while three with an apostrophe stands for reign five or seven with an apostrophe indicate while seven stands for ha the less commonly used ones are the following four indicates sheen six indicates stop eight indicates cough nine indicates sod and nine with an apostrophe indicates blood as you can see the second group has close phonemes in english respectively sh t q s and d so these latin letters are often used instead of these numbers these numbers were chosen because they look similar to their corresponding letters in arabic look closely can you see the resemblance now let&#39;s see what some sentences in egyptian arabic for instance looks like in franco-arabic this way it won&#39;t be a surprise next time your arabic speaking friend sends you a text in franco-arabic how are you how are things isaiah i in hasal patience is good which is an egyptian proverb note the sa in sabur and the ha in hello probably i won&#39;t show up note the re in reliben franco arabic is very convenient when using phones or computers that don&#39;t have arabic installed and it has been very popular for more than a decade now but did you know that many people in social media are starting to lean more towards writing dialect arabic in arabic letters in hopes to keep the arabic alphabet alive and thriving i hope you liked this lesson if you have any questions please leave a comment below and i will try to get back to you as soon as i can and i will see you in the next episode top 10 hardest words to pronounce as you can tell from the title coffee coffee for example you can say i like my coffee without sugar or milk for the word agua the actual standard arabic word is a letter but isn&#39;t it up to make it easier to pronounce we use the word we use the letter and sometimes for non-arabic speakers even the letter it&#39;s kind of difficult to pronounce that&#39;s what make it that&#39;s what makes it a little difficult morning i&#39;m always in a hurry in the morning for the word sop lots of people cannot pronounce the letter so and sometimes you mix it with sa but morning sopa is with a sa zangabil ginger zangabil is it yeah it&#39;s zangabiel ginger and sometimes people mistake it for ganzaville so please don&#39;t make this mistake yeah it&#39;s thank you i had to check what a tongue twister for example you can say zangabil ginger is good for cough and if you put ginger with lemon it&#39;s even better for cough song what kind of song would you like to listen to i think it&#39;s mostly difficult because of the i&#39;m quite busy today and i think it&#39;s also because of that turtle sol turtle and sometimes people mix it with anaz did i say it right um yeah i used to take care of a turtle emtahan exam termination of the british occupation in egypt was 1956 rabia spring rabia spring bitmaiser famos spring in egypt is known to have lots of sandstorms maybe rabia is difficult because of the ayah so say rabia ah kharif fall kharif fall or autumn for example you can say balbi&#39;s jacket fell harif this is a tongue twister balbis jacket fell harif i wear a light jacket and fall can you say 10 times want to speed up your language learning take your very first lesson with us you&#39;ll start speaking in minutes and master real conversations sign up for your free lifetime account just click the link in the description

Transcript for:Introduction to Arabic Writing

Transcript for:
Introduction to Arabic Writing