Writing Arabic
First, take a look at this video of each letter being written (above).
Now that you’ve seen each of the letters, let’s look at how they join together in cursive. Each letter changes shape depending on its position in a word: at the beginning, middle, or end. A simple way to learn the forms is by writing three-letter chunks of the alphabet while saying the sounds out loud. For example, you would write “Abc, Bcd, Cde…” while saying “aa ba ca, ba ca da…” and so on. This will help you learn all the forms of each letter, while connecting the shapes with their sounds. When you do this exercise for Arabic, it will look like:
أبت بتث تثج
We recommend doing this exercise three times a day for a week. Don’t worry if you don't write the letters perfectly right away - you’ll get more comfortable with each session.
One important note before we start: As you saw in the last lesson, each letter has four forms:
- Isolated – standing alone, unconnected
- Initial – at the beginning of a word
- Medial – in the middle of a word
- Final – at the end of a word
Most letters in the middle of a word connect on both sides, but some only connect on one side. Let’s look at the first two letters — Alif and Baa — as examples.
Alif أ
Pronunciation: “aa” (as in “father”)
Isolated: أ
Initial: أ
Medial: ـأ
Final: ـأ
Ba ب
Pronunciation: Like “b” in “ball”
Isolated: ب
Initial: بـ
Medial: ـبـ
Final: ـب
Notice how Baa’s medial form has horizontal strokes on both sides. That means it connects to letters on the left and right. Alif, by contrast, doesn’t connect to the letter on its left.
Here’s what they look like when written in sequence:
- Alif (x3): أ أ أ
- Baa (x3): ببب
- Alif + Baa + Alif: أبأ
- Baa + Alif + Baa: بأ ب
In the following exercise, we've added an "x" to notate which letters do not connect with their neighbors. Over time, you’ll memorize which letters connect on one side and which on both. For now, practice the following exercise 3 times a day for a week, and you’ll build a solid foundation.
Final note: Don't get hung up on the audio in the answers. The letter combinations are not real words, so the audio may sound a bit funny. We included audio in the answers just to help you learn what the letter combinations would sound like if they were real words.
Good luck!
Let's Practice!