ب , ت , ث , ف


Remember to read from right to left when reading Arabic letters (i.e. this way: <---). Those letters at the top are (starting from the right) baa, taa, thaa, and faa. Now don't get confused, the first three do look similar, but are different letters because of the dots. The first letter up there has one dot underneath, The second one has two dots on top. The third one has three dots snuggled up in a triangle shape. And the fourth letter has a different shape and has one dot.

Now, does the first letter make the sound baa? No. The first letter's name is baa (ب). The sound it makes is the "b" sound, excluding all vowel sounds.

"taa" (ت) makes the "t" sound. The pattern is that all letters are named with the sound they make at the beginning of their names. All letters make consonant sounds.

Now the third letter is thaa (ث). It makes the "th" sound in "think", NOT the one in "the" or "this", Arabic has another letter for that sound.

Faa makes the "f" sound.

All those letters have the same tail.

These letters connect to letters after them, within a word. Remember every letter has 4 forms.



Read the following chart (remember: from right to left) For the following chart, the dashes (in the transliteration) represent tails and the underscores represent connecting pieces in cursive writing (a.k.a. handwriting).

written three times x_x_x	written twice x_x	end-form _x	middle-form_x_	beginning-form x_	x	Name
ببب	بب	ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب	baa	b
b_b_b-	b_b-	_b-	_b_	b_	b-
تتت	تت	ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت	taa	t
ثثث	ثث	ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث	thaa	th
ففف	فف	ـف	ـفـ	فـ	ف	faa	f

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Exercises

• Hallil (take-apart) Exercises
• rakkib (construct) Exercises
• Transliteration Exercises
• Handwriting Exercises