مَرحبًا بِكُم مَرّةً أُخرى/marHaban bikum marratan ʼukhraa/Hello and welcome back. 


Today is the final part of our lesson in our Arabic for Life blog series on the Arabic essentials. If you’ve missed the first two parts, then be sure to check out our blog so you don’t miss out on the essentials of Arabic we’ve talked about so far.

Our subject today? 


Well, have you noticed yet that many sounds in Arabic don't have an equal in English? That’s what we’ll be discussing today as we look at some of the most difficult sounds to master in the Arabic language starting with the letter ʻayn/ ع.


The Letter ʻayn/ع


Indeed,  learning to pronounce the letter ʻayn/ ع with a tight constriction at the very back of the throat isn’t the easiest thing for those beginning to learn Arabic to do. 


And if you noticed in the Arabic script, the letter ʻayn/ع also takes on a different shape depending on where it falls in the word. However, we’ll get to that later. 


For now, you’ll see that, because there is no equivalent English letter, the letter ʻayn/ع is often transliterated using a single apostrophe (ʻ) as in the following: 


نَعَم

/naʻam/

yes

طَبعًا

/Tabʻan/

of course

مَعَ السَّلامَة

/maʻa issalaamah/

goodbye


The Letter khaa’/خ


The letter khaa’/خ, similar to the sound of the German ch in achtung or the Scottish ch in loch is another letter you came across in the transliteration of vocabulary for this lesson. It’s found in the following:


صَباحُ الخَير

/SabaaHu ilkhayr/

good morning

مَساءُ الخَير

/masaa’u ilkhayr/

good afternoon



The Letter Haa’/ ح


There are actually two “h” sounds in Arabic. the small “h” haa’/ ح  is pronounced like the “h” in English. The big “H” or Haa’/ ح is breathier like the sound you make when cleaning your eyeglasses with your breath.


أَهلًا

/’ahlan/

Hello

صَباح

/SabaaH/

morning


The hamzah/ء


Though not really one of the “full” letters of the Arabic alphabet, hamzah nevertheless represents the glottal stop that’s close to the sound found in the English ‘uh-oh”, as in the following:


أَهلًا

/’ahlan/

Hello

مَساءُ الخَير

/masaa’u ilkhayr/

good afternoon


These are just a few of the letters that have no equivalent sounds in English. To learn about these sounds and more, download the Kaleela Arabic language learning app where you’ll learn to master the pronunciation of all the letters of the Arabic alphabet. 

From ’alif to yaa’, learn Arabic the right way with Kaleela. Download it now only from www.kaleela.com.

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