An Easy Way To Remember The Short Vowels

Further to my recent blog post about the Arabic short vowels, I want to give you a little trick that you can use to remember the sounds and shapes of all the short vowels. For each of the harakaat there is a mnemonic, or memory aid, that helps you remember the significance of the sign.

Short Vowel Name Comment
بَ fatHa This is an <a> sound, so it’s convenient that this short vowel always appears above the letter in question
بِ kasra This is an <i> sound. Imagine that the little stroke is a drop of ink that is dropping down.
بُ Damma This is a <u> sound. Just remember that this short vowel is a small version of the letter waaw (و) that makes a similar sound.
بّ shadda The letter underneath this sign is doubly pronounced. Easy to remember, because the sign itself looks like its a “double u”
بْ sokoon This sign indicates that the letter underneath doesn’t carry any short vowel. Sokoon looks like a zero and there are zero short vowels here.

 

This should help you remember the harakaat once and for all.

One thought on “An Easy Way To Remember The Short Vowels

  1. Great article, I just given this onto a co-worker who was doing a little research on that. And he in fact purchased me lunch because I discovered it for him

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