Learn Jawi

You will see that being able to read Arabic will baffle your friends and enrich your life. Also, you will no longer be an analphabet when travelling to an Arab country, and there are many of them.

Let's start!

The first Arabic letter you should learn is Baa: 

As you may have guessed from the name, this is the Arabic equivalent of B. Note that Arabic is read and written from right to left. This will take some getting used to, so take a sheet of paper and practise every letter immediately. To write Baa, start at the right tip of the letter, write that curve to the left and finally place the dot underneath. Dots always come last.

One letter is not enough to read anything, so let's have another. May I present to you: 'alif 

This letter's basic sound is a long "ah". We'll transliterate it as "aa".

One very important thing to note is that Arabic is a cursive script, meaning that you have to connect the letters in writing. So to write "baa", we actually have to mesh Baa and 'alif together: با 

'alif is an isolating letter though, meaning that you can attach 'alif to something, but you can't attach another letter to the end of 'alif. So to write "bab", the Arabic word for "door", you have to do this: باب

B and As are getting old, let's have another letter. This one is Taa: 

It looks quite similar to Baa, except there are two dots on top instead of one dot beneath the letter. It's pronounced like the English letter T.

Reading exercise
تاب    key on your keyboard (Tab)
Note that Taa meshes just the same way as Baa does.





This is Thaa: 

It's almost the same as Taa, but there are three dots on top. You will find that it meshes the same way, too. It's pronounced like the TH in "math".

Practise reading:

باث    City in England (Bath)




Here's another letter that looks almost the same: 

This is Nuun. It has basically the same shape as the letters we've seen so far, but not quite. It's not as wide, and it dips below the line. The pronunciation is like the English N.

One more reading exercise:

آن Woman's name (Anne)
ناثان Man's name (Nathan)




Next letter: 

This is the letter Waaw, pronounced either as a W or as a long U sound (transliterated UU). It also replaces the O in foreign words. Note that Waaw is an isolating letter, just like Alif, so whenever you write it, the word ostensibly has to end there, you can't connect the following letter to it.

Finally, here's a LONG reading exercise to practice everything we learned in this lesson:

نو  name of a Greek letter (Nu)
بون big city in Western Germany (Bonn)
بوب man's name (Bob)
بوتان either a chemical molecule or an exotic country (Butane/Bhutan)
وون  Korean currency (Won)
بانتو African tribe (Bantu)
ناتو  international organization (NATO)




Let's have another vowel. This one is Yaa: 

What? 4 letters? No, just 4 forms. I give you the shape Yaa will take at the beginning of a word (on the right), in the middle of it (2nd from the right), at the end and in isolation. Very often you can guess how letters will mesh, but not this time. Or would you have thought that Yaa in beginning and medium position looks just like Baa with another dot? 

Yaa is pronounced either as a long EE sound (transliterated as II), or as semi-vowel Y as in 'year'. It's also used to transliterate E in foreign names.

Another reading exercise:

يوان Chinese currency (Yuan)
تايوان Asian country (Taiwan)
ويتني one Houston (Whitney)
توني boy's name (Tony)

Yes, this is the letter to learn if you want to know how to write your name in Arabic.




Now back to consonants. This is Miim: 

This letter has a tail when no other letters are connected to it. It's pronounced just like an English M.

Practise reading:

تيم boy's name (Tim)
تومي boy's name (Tommy)
ميثان chemical molecule (Methane)
مومباي   city in India (Mumbai)
بومباي  former name of the above (Bombay)




And here's Laam: 

It meshes in a very boring, expected way, so you don't need to memorize several forms. However, you do need to remember that 'alif looks very similar to a Laam in medium position, but 'alif does not connect to the following letter. It's pronounced just like an English L, and it even looks a lot like an L - mirrored of course, since Arabs write from right to left.

Nice long review again:

بيل  A former American president's first name (Bill)
ليبيا  Country in North Africa (Libya)
ليما  Capital of a South-American country (Lima)
ليون City in France (Lyon)
ألبانيا Country in Southern Europe (Albania)

Now here's a tip: Arabs don't typically write out short vowels, they guess them. However, in children's books and in places where exactness is too important, such as in the holy scriptures, short vowels are indicated.

For a short A sound, draw a short line above the consonant (called fatha), like this "ba": بَ

For a short I sound, draw a short line below the consonent (called kasra), like this "bi": بِ

Two things to note: 
1) some people will indicate a short vowel in addition to the long vowel for extra clarity. It's still just one sound - unless the vowels differ, then you get a diphtong like ay, ya and so on.
2) When you need a vowel sound at the beginning of a word, 'alif carries it.

Try to read the following words that contain short vowels. Careful, the extra lines are easy to miss!


يَمَن   Arab country (Yemen)

Source : http://www.learnlangs.com/RWP/Arabic/Lesson2.htm