Lesson #1: The Arabic Alphabet

The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters (29 if Hamza is counted as an independent letter). Every one should be familiar with how to pronounce and write them.

Here is what you are supposed to know:

1- Read each letter when it is written separately from all other letters. For example when you see (ا), (ب) or (ة) you should know how it is pronounced. If you have a difficulty pronouncing one of these letters, then look for an Arabic speaking friend (or a non-Arabic speaker but knows how to pronounce the letters) and ask them to teach you this.

2- Write each letter separately. For example, if you hear someone pronouncing the letter (ا) or (ب) you should know how to write it.

3- Learn (memorize) the order of the letters. This is like knowing that the English alphabets are ordered as (A B C D E F …etc). The order of the Arabic letters is given in this document.

The following table shows the basic form of Arabic letters according to whether the letter is isolated. Care has to be taken to distinguish letters which are similar to each other in form but differ with dots.