Shadda, tanwin, ta marbuta and alif maqsura

Shadda: one letter said twice

Shadda, a small sign like a w above a letter, doubles it: you hold the consonant a moment longer, closing one syllable with it and opening the next. مُدَرِّس is mu-dar-ris (teacher), حَمَّام ḥam-mām (bathroom), سُكَّر suk-kar (sugar). The vowel goes with the shadda: fatḥa and ḍamma sit on top of it, kasra under the letter or under the shadda. In a vocalized text the shadda is never left out – it changes the word.

Shadda: one small stroke above the letter, like a tiny w.

سُكَّرٌ وَشَايٌsugar and tea

Tanwin: the -n endings

A doubled vowel sign on the last letter of a noun adds an n: ٌ -un, ً -an, ٍ -in. This tanwīn marks a noun as indefinite: كِتَابٌ (kitābun) is “a book”. With -an an extra ا is written but not read as ā: قَلَمًا (qalaman); this alif is left out after ة and ى. Fully vocalized textbooks write these endings; when you stop at the end of a sentence you drop them: kitāb, and -an becomes a long ā: شُكْرًا (shukran, thank you) said alone is shukrā in careful speech, shukran in everyday use.

Tanwin -un: two small curls above the letter, side by side.

Tanwin -an: two short slanted strokes above the letter, one under the other.

Tanwin -in: the same two strokes, below the letter.

Ta marbuta and alif maqsura

ة (tāʾ marbūṭa, “tied t”) is a ه wearing the two dots of ت, and it stands only at the end of a word. It is the usual feminine ending: مُدَرِّس (teacher, a man) → مُدَرِّسَة (teacher, a woman). At a pause it is said -a: mudarrisa; when a vowel follows it, the t comes back: غُرْفَةُ مُدَرِّسٍ (ghurfatu mudarrisin, a teacher’s room). ى (alif maqṣūra) is a ي without dots at the end of a word, read as a long ā: عَلَى (ʿalā, on), مُوسَى (Mūsā), هُدَى (Hudā).

The loop of ه, then the two dots of ت above it, right one first.

The body of ي with no dots at all.

مُدَرِّسٌ وَمُدَرِّسَةٌa teacher and a woman teacher

غُرْفَةٌ وَحَمَّامٌa room and a bathroom