Learn the Arabic alphabet.
Arabic has 28 letters. Most of them take a different form at the start, middle and end of a word, which looks like a lot to memorise until you see that the forms follow two rules. With ten minutes a day, most people can recognise and type all 28 in a week or two. The chart below has every letter with its name, its sound and its four forms.
Smaller than it looks.
28 letters, fewer bodies
That's two more than English, and many of them come in sets that share one body and differ only in their dots. ب ت ث sit on the same tooth, and so do the beginnings of ن and ي. ج ح خ are one form with the dot inside, missing or on top. Learn the body once, then count dots.
Four positions, small changes
A letter can stand alone or sit at the start, middle or end of a word. Mostly the change is the tail. A letter drops it to join the next one and keeps it at the end of a word, so ب becomes a small tooth in بيت. ه and ع change the most from one position to the next.
Six letters never join left
ا د ذ ر ز و connect to the letter before them and never to the one after. Whatever follows starts fresh, which is why دار(house) has no joins at all. These six only have two forms, so they're the easiest part of the chart.
All 28 Arabic letters.
In alphabet order, top to bottom. The forms run isolated, initial, medial and final. The line (ـ) shows the side a letter joins on. Shaded rows are the six that never join left. Each row links to the most common words that start with that letter.
A few more characters turn up in almost every text without being letters of their own. ة(tāʾ marbūṭa) is a feminine ending sounded as a soft ‘a’. ى (alif maqṣūra) is a dotless yāʾ that only appears at the end of a word. And hamza, the glottal stop, can sit alone as ء or ride on another letter: أ إ آ ؤ ئ.
Alif and baa first, then the useful ones.
The ArabicTyper course opens with three letters: alif, hamza and baa. That's already enough for three real words, بابا (dad), أب (father) and باب(door). The tooth letters come next because they share baa's body, so you're only learning dots.
From there the order follows the words. Letters that build the most common short words arrive early, and rarer sounds like the heavy ظwait until near the end. Seven units cover all 28 letters in fifteen lessons. At a lesson a day that's about two weeks, and unit 8 adds the vowel marks.
- 1Alif and the tooth lettersFirst words: بيت · بنت · ابن (house, girl, son)ا أ ب ت ث ن ي
- 2kaaf, laam, miim and haaFirst words: كتاب · كلب · أم (book, dog, mother)ك ل م ه ة
- 3The letters that never join leftFirst words: ولد · يوم · مدينة (boy, day, city)د ذ ر ز و
- 4siin, shiin, saad and daadFirst words: شمس · مدرسة (sun, school)س ش ص ض
- 5The throat lettersج ح خ ع غ
- 6faa, qaaf and the heavy pairف ق ط ظ
- 7Hamza and its seatsء إ آ ؤ ئ ى
- 8Tashkeel, the small marksبَ بُ بِ بْ بّ بً
Type each letter the day you meet it.
To type a letter you have to find it. You count its dots, check which way it faces and pick the right key, and a wrong pick shows up straight away. That's more attention than a letter gets on a flashcard, and it's the same attention reading needs. In the app each letter arrives with its four forms. Then you find it on the keyboard and type words that use it, a minute or two after you first saw it.
Every word comes with audio from a native voice, so you hear بابas you type it. The keyboard on screen shows where each letter lives, so you don't need an Arabic layout installed. Lesson 1 is free. If you'd like the keys on a computer too, the typing course here covers that.
Questions about the letters.
How long does it take to learn the Arabic alphabet?
Recognising and typing all 28 letters takes most people about two weeks of ten-minute days. Reading whole words with them quickly takes longer, a month or two, because the joined forms have to become familiar. The letters themselves are the quick part.
How many letters are in the Arabic alphabet?
28. Some charts count hamza (ء) as a 29th. You'll also see ة, ى and the hamza seats أ إ آ ؤ ئ in almost any text. They're variants of letters already on the list, so they don't add much to learn.
Why do Arabic letters have four forms?
Arabic is always joined up, like handwriting in cursive. A letter's form depends on whether it connects to the letter before it, the one after it, both or neither. Most of the difference is the tail: a letter drops it when it joins forward and keeps it at the end of a word.
Which Arabic letters don't connect?
Six: ا د ذ ر ز و. They join the letter before them and never the one after, so whatever follows starts again in its initial form. That's why a word like ورد (rose) is written as three separate letters.
Should I learn the short vowel marks at the same time?
Right after. Most printed Arabic leaves the short vowels out, so the bare letters are what you'll read every day. The ArabicTyper course teaches the six marks (fatha, damma, kasra, sukuun, shadda and tanwiin) in unit 8, once every letter is in place.
Is there an app for learning the Arabic alphabet?
ArabicTyper, for iPhone, iPad and Android. It teaches the letters and then over 200 common words by having you type each one, with audio for every word. Lesson 1 is free, and the yearly plan starts with a 7-day free trial.
Your first three letters are free.
Lesson 1 of ArabicTyper teaches ا, أ and ب. By the end you've typed بابا, أب and باب and heard each one spoken. The other 26 letters follow over the next fourteen lessons. Want the bigger picture first? See how learning to read Arabic works.
Rather stay in the browser? The alphabet practice set is free and works on any keyboard.