Learn to Read Arabic

Lesson 1Learn Arabic Online

Arabic is the language of a large part of our planet . It is one of the permanent languages of the UN.

These are a few very basic learn to read the alphabet lessons. You may freely copy these lessons for non-commercial uses . The words are mostly in English so you can more easily recognise the shape of the letters.Write to us to let us know if you find the lessons useful and if you spot any mistakes.

Arabic is written in the opposite direction from English , i.e. from your right hand towards your left one . In are two letters "sh" as in shame and "n" as in name. The Hindi equivalent is given alongside . Hindi Lessons.

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Each letter is written in four forms . For eg if 'Sh' comes in the beginning of a word it is written as

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If in the middle then

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If at the end then

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and if on its own , in a detached form

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From the figure below one can see that it is easy to spot the four forms of each letter. The detached form and final form look very similar . The inital and medial ones have the final bit of a letter left out . Arabic has its own built in shorthand !

These are the four forms of Sh and N marked detached , initial , medial and final.

Supposing we wanted to make a word beginning with Sh and ending with N ( eg to shun somebody) we take initial form of Sh and final form of N to make shn

Now follows the whole Arabic alphabet with the closest English equivalent .

Note that in the figure above (which has the equivalent Hindi sound added ) some sounds share a common letter. For example B and P are the same , although in some Arab countries three dots are present under B to make it P.

Revise the alphabet again