Free Arabic alphabet and first words

What's inside

• The letters and their shapesAll 28 letters in alphabet order, with a gentle guide to the sounds English doesn't have, from the throat sound of ع to the deep, heavy s, d and t. Then how a letter changes at the start, middle and end of a word, the six letters that never join forward, and the short vowel marks subtitles leave out.
• How words workNo word for a, the article al- and the sun letters (ash-shams, the sun), masculine and feminine, I, you, he and she, and why Arabic needs no is: أنا طالب, I'm a student.
• 171 words, then show wordsGreetings like السلام عليكم and شكرا, family, numbers in Arabic digits, food, places and verbs. Then reactions like يلا and خلاص, what to call people, a note on dialects, and ten sentences to read before you check.

How to use it

1. Read the letters page aloud, one card at a time. Don't worry if the throat sounds take a while.
2. Look at the shapes page, don't learn it. You'll start to see the core shape of each letter as you read words.
3. Learn five words a day. Cover the romanization and the grey English on the last page, read each sentence aloud, then slide the paper down to check.
4. Watch something in Arabic and catch the words you know. Hover any word in Arabic subtitles with Kitsumi to see what it means.

Questions