Learning Arabic Blog

ن ,ي

2008-03-08T00:04:45Z

Lesson 1: Introduction
Lesson 2: About the Language
Lesson 3: Introduction to the Alphabet
Lesson 4: ا ب ت ث First Letters

السلام عليكم
Welcome to Lesson 5!

Just 2 letters this time, since last lesson was a big one.

The letters are ن and ي

1 ن
nūn

It represents the "n" sound like in the English words
"near", "name" and "next"

The full form is deep; the curve rests just below the line of writing.

ن
nūn full form
Nūn ن has a full form used when standing alone or at the end of a word; shown above.

ﻧ
nūn short form
It also has a short form, used at the beginning or the middle of a word. It is like the short forms of ب ت ث. The only thing which differentiates these four short forms are the dots!

2)ي
yā

At the beginning of a word: yā represents the "y-" sound found in English words such "year"

In the middle of a word: yā represents either the "y-" sound like above, long vowel -ī- (like in English "machine" or "seen") or the vowel combination sound "-ay-" like in English "day".

At the end of a word: long vowel -ī- as above.

ي
yā full form
Yā ي has a full form used when standing alone or at the end of a word; shown above.

ﻳ
yā short form
It also has a short form used at the beginning of, which is exactly like the short form of ب ت ث ن except again, the dots let us tell them apart!

ا ب ت ث

2008-02-17T14:28:57Z

Lesson 1: Introduction
Lesson 2: About the Language
Lesson 3: Introduction to the Alphabet

In this unit we will learn our first group of letters.
From right to left, these first 4 letters are
ا ب ت ث ← ← ←

ا alif
ب bā
ت tā
ث thā

1) ا
alif
ا alif is the most common letter of the alphabet. It is also the first letter. It represents;

At the beginning of a word: any short vowel sound "a-" "u-" "i-" (think in English and, put and ink)

In the middle of a word: the long vowel -ā-. Imagine the English word "Canada", and draw out the vowels a little further, "Caanaadaa". I will continue to transliterate this long "aa" sound as "ā"

At the end of a word: in a few words, a final ا alif represents a short "a-" sound

ا is called a disjoined letter. This means it never joins to the next letter in a word. It rests on the line of writing and is quite tall, like our "l" in the word light.

آ
alif madda

Sometimes, we come across an ا alif with a stroke over it. This is called alif madda and it represents a long ā at the beginning of a word.

2) ب
bā

ب bā represents the sound b like in the English word best or blush.

It is shallow (meaning it rests on the line of writing and is short).

3) ت
tā

ت tā represents the sound t like in the English try or tender.

It is shallow (meaning it rests on the line of writing and is short).

4) ث
thā

thā represents the soft "th" sound like in the English word think
but not the hard "th" in English words like "this" or "that".

I will continue to transliterate ث as th underlined to show that it is one letter, a single sound.

Like ب and ت, it is shallow (meaning it rests on the line of writing and is short).

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ب ت ث all have the same shape, it is the dots which differentiate them.

When written at the beginning of a word, or in the middle of a word it comes in it's short form.
ﺛ ﺗ ﺑ ←
→ bā tā thā short form

When it stands at the end of a word or alone it is in it's full form.
ب ت ث ←
→ bā tā thā full form

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Notice their shapes in the following words.

Here are some words you can write using the letters you have learned already, I have written out the composing letters first and then the complete, joined up word. Remember to read from the right to the left.

ا + ب = اب
ab
Father

ب + ا + ب = باب
bāb
door

آ + ب = آب
āb
August

ا + ث + ا + ث = اثاث
athāth
furniture

ث + ا + ب + ت = ثابت
thābit
firm, solid

So, it's not so hard after all!! Next lesson I will introduce the next two letters and quite a few new words you can write using them plus the letters from this lesson! Hope you learned, thank you!

Introducing the Alphabet

2008-02-13T08:19:25Z

Lesson 1: Introduction
Lesson 2: About the Language

Lesson 3
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, many which sound common to the English letters and some which do not. The writing runs from right to left and there are no capital letters, and the script is cursive..it's always joined up, save a few "disjoined letters" which are joined to the letter before but never the letter after.

The alphabet runs as follows;

About The Language

2008-02-12T07:39:42Z

Lesson 1: Introduction

Lesson 2
The Arabic alphabet is an extremely diverse and beautiful language, spoken by around 250 million people and is the official and co-official language of over 20 countries from Sudan in Africa to Iraq in Asia.
Arabic is a Semetic language (like Hebrew) and comes in three main forms;
Classical Arabic: which is a very rigid form of Arabic, the original dialect in Makkah and the language that the Holy book of Islam, the Qur'an, is written in.
Modern Standard Arabic: this is the form of Arabic which newspapers, tv shows, radio and websites are written/spoken in, mostly used for writing this form is used across the Arab world.
Colloquial Arabic: varies from place to place, a speaker of for example Lebanese Arabic may find it hard to understand a speaker of Moroccan Arabic. However, all forms are derived from Modern Standard Arabic. The most understood form of colloquial spoken Arabic is Egyptian Arabic probably due to Cairo's popular film industry.

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The words in Arabic are built on a "root" system of 3 (sometimes 4) consonants, which show the basic idea underlying in all of the words made from that root. One of the most popular examples used to illustrate this idea is the root consisting of the three consonants K T B, all of the words derived from this root have the basic idea of writing. From this root, we can make;

Katab to write
Kātib writer
Maktûb written, letter
Kitāba writing (the action of)
maktab office, desk
kitāb book
maktaba library, bookshop

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Another point to make about Arabic is that vowels are only implied in writing. This means that the vocalisation of a word is also implied through the context. This isn't as difficult as it sounds, you just have to know the words. For example, the word "kitāb" is written as ktāb in Arabic. You have to know an "i" should be there. Consider the English words "PUT" and "BUT". You know that the "u" is pronounced differently in each one, so it may aswell not be written! As you progress in Arabic you will see that the lack of vowels in text do not have to be a great difficulty.
There ARE signs for vowels, but they are usually not written and are a feature of classical texts. To gain an understanding of Arabic in it's normal usage you must learn to read without them.

The next lesson will be about introducing the Alphabet, thank you!

Introduction

2008-02-12T05:39:50Z

!
السلام عليكم
(as-salaamu alaykum)
Peace be upon you

Welcome to the blog! I'm a Scot living in Glasgow learning Arabic and would like to share my experiences, and my learning with other people who are learning or wish to learn Arabic. The first thing to mention about Arabic is that it's an extremely diverse and multi-faceted language, and the rewards for learning Arabic would be great. However, Arabic comes in many different forms and to begin with you need to choose one discipline to study in. You really need to learn spoken Arabic and understand written Arabic. Spoken Arabic (colloquial) varies greatly across the Arabic world and is region specific, with some dialects being almost unintelligible to speakers of other dialects and there is no official way of writing it. Written Arabic (modern standard arabic) is understood by all educated Arabs but not spoken in everyday life, it is the language of newspapers and media. Learn one first, a colloquial dialect of your choice or modern standard arabic. The choice is yours what to begin first, and there are many arguments for learning spoken Arabic first, mainly because it is easier. There are also many arguments for learning written Arabic first. My blog will be concerned with learning Modern Standard Arabic first, and introducing Egyptian colloquial Arabic. A good reason for beginning with modern standard first is that a)You will learn to read the script which is a crucial first step into the world of Arabic and b)You will find many sources for learning it such as Arabic news sites, Arabic talk shows, newspapers..etc. etc.

Here is a list of books that I will be using and sharing with you in this community which are all available on Amazon.co.uk if you want to buy them, but you can learn using this blog if you can't afford to buy many books. It is not essential to buy them to learn here but I would like to give credit to the authors;

Teach Yourself Arabic Script - John Mace
ISBN 978-0-340-86016-8
Teach Yourself Arabic - J.R. Smart
ISBN 0-340-27582-0
Mastering Arabic - Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar
ISBN 978-0-230-01310-0
Arabic: Verbs and Essential Grammar - Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar
ISBN 0-8442-4605-0
Al-Mawrid Al-Quareeb - Mounir Baalbaki and Dr. Rohi Baalbaki
ISBN 9953631700
Instant Arabic: Express 1,000 Ideas with 100 words - Fethi Mansouri and Yousef Alreemawi
ISBN - 978-0-8048-3860-3
First 1,000 words in Arabic - Heather Amery
ISBN - 0746046510
Kullu Tamam! An Introduction to Egpytian Arabic - Manfred Woidich and Rabha Heinen-Nasr
ISBN - 977-424-842-2
Say it in [Egyptian] Arabic - Dover
ISBN - 0-486-22026-5
Build Your Arabic Vocabulary - Haroon Shirwani
ISBN - 978 -0 -07-147876-2

My next post will elaborate on the language of Arabic a little bit more. Thank you!