Letters

Learn to pronounce all letters of the Arabic alphabet – just click to hear the pronunciation!

The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Just click on each letter to hear how it’s pronounced correctly. You can listen to the pronunciations as many times as you like.

The Arabic alphabet is regarded by many to be extremely difficult to master. And it’s certainly true that a lot of Arabic learners give up because of troubles learning this complex script. But, from my own experience the Arabic letters can be learnt easily with the right method. In my instantly downloadable book The Magic Key To The Arabic Alphabet I describe a complete system for learning how to read and write Arabic, a system based on memory images that eliminate the need for rote learning! Please click here to find out more about this unique e-book.

In the meantime here are the basic rules that you need to know about the Arabic alphabet:

28 Arabic Letters

The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters, just 2 more than the English alphabet! Each of the letters represents a distinct sound. In addition, there are a few additional characters that you will need to master.

Arabic written from right to left

Arabic is always written from right to left, as opposed to English which is written from left to right. This could cause some confusion when you start out, but after a few hours of practice with my book this will become second nature.

Short vowels are not written

In most written material there will be no signs to indicate short vowels such as the short “u”, “i” or “a”. So “with” becomes “wth” and “cat” becomes “ct”. With more exposure to Arabic words you can often predict which short vowels are required, even for unknown words.

Changing shapes and cursive writing

Letters within a word are usually connected, just like in cursive handwriting in English. However, this means that the letters have to change their shapes so that it’s easier to connect them. In my book I explain exactly why this happens and how you can learn to recognize and write the letters in all their shapes.

Difficult Arabic sounds

There are a number of letters that have sounds not found in the English language. These sounds can give a bit of trouble initially, but once mastered they can be something to be proud of. The difficult sounds are qaaf, ‘ayn, ghayn, raa’, Taa, Daad, Saad, Zaa’, Haa’ and khaa’. With the app on this page you can listen to these difficult sounds as often as you want and imitate them until you get it right.