The Arabic alphabet: 28 letters, right to left

Twenty-eight letters, written from right to left and mostly joined – and short vowels that sit above and below the line.

Arabic is written from right to left with twenty-eight letters, all of them consonants or long vowels: alif (ا), wāw (و) and yāʾ (ي) also write the long vowels ā, ū and ī. There are no capital letters. Most letters join the next one in a word and take a slightly different shape at its start, in its middle and at its end – bāʾ is ﺑ at the start of بيت (house) and ـب at the end of كتب (books). Six letters (ا د ذ ر ز و) never join the letter after them, which is why words break into separate pieces.

The short vowels are not letters but marks: a fatḥa above a letter is a short a (بَ ba), a kasra below it a short i (بِ bi), a ḍamma above it a short u (بُ bu). A sukūn (بْ) marks a consonant with no vowel, and a shadda (بّ) doubles it. Beginners’ texts and the Qurʾān write these marks in; newspapers, books and signs leave them out, and the reader supplies them from the word. A few letters stand for sounds English does not have: ع (ʿayn) and ح (ḥāʾ) from the throat, the emphatic ص ض ط ظ, and ق (qāf) at the very back of the mouth.

Tap a letter below to see it larger, with its reading and its name. The A0 level of the course covers the letters, their joined forms and the short vowels with audio, for free; A1 opens with greetings and the first sentences.

The chart

Tap a character to watch it being written and to trace it yourself.

Letters

Vowels

  • Learn the letters in families that share a shape and differ only in their dots: ب ت ث, ج ح خ, د ذ, ر ز, س ش, ص ض, ط ظ, ع غ, ف ق. The dots are the whole difference, so read them first.
  • Start with the six letters that never join forward – ا د ذ ر ز و: they explain where a word breaks into pieces, and the rest of the joining rules fall into place with them.
  • Read vocalized texts aloud while you learn: every fatḥa, kasra and ḍamma tells you the vowel. Once a word is familiar, cover the marks and read it again – that is how unvocalized Arabic is read.

The lessons that teach it

The A0 level of the course, free: the letters, their sounds and the first words, with the same stroke animations and tracing exercises.

Letters and Joining

Reading right to left: twenty letters, the vowel signs and how letters join.

  1. Right to left: ا ب ت ث ن و ي and the vowel signs
  2. ج ح خ, د ذ ر ز and the letters that never join forward
  3. س ش ص ض ط ظ: teeth, loops and the heavy letters
  4. Checkpoint: Letters and Joining
  5. Reading, listening and 10 questions

The Rest of the Alphabet and the Signs

The last ten letters, doubling, the -n endings, the hamza and the article.

  1. ع غ ف ق ك ل م ه and the lam-alif
  2. Shadda, tanwin, ta marbuta and alif maqsura
  3. Hamza, madda and the article: sun and moon letters
  4. Checkpoint: The Rest of the Alphabet and the Signs
  5. Reading, listening and 10 questions
The whole course: Learn Arabic together

Questions

How many letters does the Arabic alphabet have?
Twenty-eight. Hamza (ء), which marks a glottal stop, is usually not counted as a letter of its own, and tāʾ marbūṭa (ة), the feminine ending, is a form of tāʾ. A letter has up to four shapes – alone, at the start, in the middle and at the end of a word – but it is the same letter.
Why are the short vowels missing from most texts?
Because a reader who knows the language supplies them: كتب is read kataba (he wrote) or kutub (books) from the sentence around it. Children’s books, textbooks and the Qurʾān write the vowels in, and so does the course: every word at A0 and A1, only the new words at A2, and from B1 on only where a word could be misread.
Which Arabic does the course teach?
Modern Standard Arabic – the written language of the whole Arab world, of books, the news and formal speech – with a clear, neutral pronunciation. The spoken dialects are not part of the course.
All articles