26/01/2020 Duolingo - The world's best way to learn Arabic

Alphabet 1

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

https://www.duolingo.com/skill/ar/Alphabet1/tips-and-notes 1/2
26/01/2020 Duolingo - The world's best way to learn Arabic

English letters Arabic

Alphabet 1 letters

d ‫د‬

da ‫َد‬

Wow, yeah!
Sometimes ‫ = و‬uu (long vowel) and other times ‫ = و‬w.

English letters Arabic letters

zuu ‫زو‬

BUT

English letters Arabic letters

zaw ‫زَ و‬

wa ‫َو‬

Same with the letter ‫ي‬: sometimes ‫ = ي‬ii (long vowel) and sometimes ‫ = ي‬y.

English letters Arabic letters

zii ‫زي‬

BUT

English letters Arabic letters

zay ‫زَ ي‬

ya ‫ي‬
َ

The key is other vowels! If there is a vowel right before or right after ‫ و‬or ‫ي‬, then they become
w and y. Otherwise, they’re just the long vowels uu and ii.

https://www.duolingo.com/skill/ar/Alphabet1/tips-and-notes 2/2