Alif Baa Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds (Third Edition, with DVD)

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While most letters are happy to sit next to the letter that follows it, a select six are more ‘anti-social’. An academy teaches the Noble Qur’an, Islamic studies, and Arabic language to non-native speakers (Online). But here’s the good news: it’s a phonetic language that follows very consistent pronunciation rules.

Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book.The audiovisual materials were provided on DVDs, and featured the same scenes of Maha and Khalid re-recorded with new actors and provided in both Fusha and colloquial Egyptian Arabic. As a some-what speaker of Arabic, this book was really helpful but in the sense of learning from other dialects it was confusing. Alif Baa provides the essential first 20-25 contact (classroom) hours of the Al-Kitaab Arabic Language Program, accompanied by 40-50 homework hours. Arabic script letters) ا, ب‎, پ‎, ﺕ‎, ﺝ‎, ﭺ‎, ﺡ‎, ﺩ‎, ﺭ‎, ﺯ‎, ﺱ‎, ﺵ‎, ﻉ‎, ﻑ‎, ﻕ‎, ك‎, گ‎, ڭ‎, ﻝ‎, ﻡ‎, ﻥ‎, ە‎, ھ‎, و‎, ۇ‎, ۋ‎, ۆ‎, ى‎, ي‎.

That is just confusing and essentially is akin to trying to learn three different languages at the same time - bad idea!The exercises on the DVD are very useful - but the audio quality for some of the recordings (especially the dictation drills) was poor [they would start abruptly] thus i had to replay the track several times before i could be sure about which sound i was hearing. Note: DVDs that once featured the audio and video are now obsolete and no longer included in the books.

The first and last character are the baa ( ب ) character, and the middle is the unfriendly alif ( أ ). But with this guide, it’ll be as easy as alif, baa, taa—that’s A, B, T, the first three letters of the Arabic alphabet! The initial form is how the letter appears when at the start of a word (remember, this is at the far right). This book was the designated book for a class I was taking as part of the HeadStart program at uOttawa.

In the next lesson we will use some examples to practice and familiarise ourselves with the joined form of letters In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing) .