Arabic Letters and Writing Basic introduction

Main Points:

1. Arabic is Written Right to left  <———

2. Arabic letters change shape slightly depending on their position in the word.

3. The letters you learn on their own are what they look like at the end of the word

4. There is a total of 28 Letters plus some special Characters. 22 Letters can be connected from both sides, while 6 can only be connected from the right.

5. When connecting a letter from the right side the shape doesn’t change. only from the left.

6. Arabic letters come in groups, meaning you can see 3 letters that look exactly the same but just have an extra dot above or below.

7. Different dialects may pronounce some of the letters differently compared to the standard.

Of course, just giving listing this information may not be enough to understand or imagine everything that’s going on here. So, let’s take a closer look at each point.

 

 

1 – Arabic is Written Right to left <——— : 

 

In many languages, whenever you open up a book or read something you look to the top left corner. Since, words and sentences start from the left. However, in Arabic it doesn’t work like that.

Arabic is written from right to left. So, an Arabic book is opened from the right side, which is the back side for most non-Arabic speakers. It may also feel awkward when writing since most people are used to writing left to right.

 

2 – Arabic letters change shape slightly depending on their position in the word.

 

Arabic words aren’t made of separate letters placed next to each other like in English. The letters are actually connected to one another, Except for 6 letters which don’t get connected on the left side. So, each letter may change shape depending on its position in the word ( beginning, middle, end)

Let me demonstrate by writing the same exact letter 3 times in a row:  ههه 

 

3 – The letters you learn on their own are what they look like at the end of the word

As usual, the first step to learning the letters is learning each letter separately without connections. and this separate form of the letter is what it would look like at the end of a word. let’s look at an example:

Let’s say the letter is ح   you see how it has a head and a C shaped tail. and this is exactly how it’s going to look at the end of a word ( on the left side).  فتح even though the letter is connected you can clearly see it still looks the same. However, if that same letter is in the beginning or the middle of the word it’s not going to have this C shaped tail anymore.

4 – There is a total of 28 Letters plus some special Characters. 22 Letters can be connected from both sides, while 6 can only be connected from the right.

 

Left	28 Letters Total	Right
Yes	22	Yes
No	6	Yes

 

As shown above there is a total of 28 letters, with 22 of those letters can be connected from both sides. whether a letter proceeds or comes after, it must be connected. However, there are 6 letters that are never connected when a letter comes after them (on the left side). Hopefully, this small table helps demonstrate the point.

 

5 – When connecting a letter from the right side the shape doesn’t change. only from the left.

 

this is a really good tip that can help learners avoid memorizing different shapes of the same letter depending on it’s position in the word, by basically understanding when the shape changes and how. and by recognizing the pattern. Connecting the letter from the right side regardless of its position doesn’t change the shape of the letter itself. the shape only changes when it must be connected to the left. let’s demonstrate:

before I showed you this letter حat the end of the word. and this is was connected only from the right not and not from the left. the shape stayed exactly the same. However, if a letter comes after it on the left side we will lose that C shaped tail and it will look like this.

حمد

6 – Arabic letters come in groups, meaning you can see 3 letters that look exactly the same but just have an extra dot above or below. 

 

Now hearing that there are 28 Arabic letters, students might wonder “ok that’s a long list of new shapes I need to memorize” while it’s not the case at all. It’s just a few main groups. let’s take a look at a couple of the groups.

Group 1:

 ب  ت  ث 

Group 2:

ج  ح  خ 

Notice how they look exactly the same with just different dot positions. and if they look the same, they are connected the same way and follow the same rules.

7 – Different dialects may pronounce some of the letters differently compared to the standard. 

 

just like any other language in the world, Arabic has many dialects. Each Arabic speaking country has its own way of speaking Arabic. Arabic in Egypt is different than Arabic spoken in Saudi Arabia and so on. this also extends to how we pronounce the letters as well. for Example, the letter ج in Standard Arabic is pronounced like the letter “J” in English. However, in Egypt the same letter is pronounced like “G” in the word “good” and much more.

for example the word for “Beautiful” is جميل. In standard Arabic it’s pronounced “Jameel”. However. in Egyptian Arabic it’s pronounced “Gameel”

I really hope I gave you some useful insight and simple introduction to the world of Arabic letters and writing and hopefully you can learn more by trying to learn Arabic letters and writing in just a week. It may sound impossible but by following a carefully thought out plan you can achieve it. Lots of students have already done, and so can you.

 

You can watch a small lesson about actually writing the letters here: Writing Arabic Letters