Reading back to front
Did you know that Arabic is written right to left?
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| d |
د |
| aa |
ا |
| daa |
دا |
(See? Right to left! How cool is that?)
This means that when you pick up a book or magazine written in
Arabic, you should start reading from the back cover — which, of course,
is the front!
Aah!!
When Arabic is written using English letters, sometimes there’ll be two vowels in a row.
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| daa |
دا |
| duu |
دو |
| dii |
دي |
This doesn’t mean that there are two vowels in Arabic, but rather
that there is one loooong vowel. Yes, Arabic has both short and long
vowels! You’ll be learning more about this soon.
Oh, duh
When you see a tiny forward slash above a letter, it means this
letter has a short ah sound right after it. We’ll talk more about this
later.
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| d |
د |
| da |
دَ |
Wow, yeah!
Sometimes و =
uu (long vowel) and other times و =
w.
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| zuu |
زو |
BUT
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| zaw |
زَو |
| wa |
وَ |
Same with the letter
ي: sometimes
ي =
ii (long vowel) and sometimes
ي =
y.
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| zii |
زي |
BUT
| English letters |
Arabic letters |
| zay |
زَي |
| ya |
يَ |
The key is other vowels! If there is a vowel right before or right
after
و or
ي, then they become w and y. Otherwise, they’re just the
long vowels
uu and
ii.
