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Arabic Reading Course

ARABIC SHORT VOWEL-MARKS OVERVIEW

• In Arabic, there are 3 short vowel-marks. We shall learn the long vowel-marks in a later lesson In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing). The short vowel-marks enable the letter to make a sound in a similar way to the English language. In the same way a word cannot be made in the English language without one of the 5 vowels (a, e, i, o or u), in Arabic one cannot make a word without a vowel being used.
• We will cover the 3 vowel-marks in Arabic below In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing). The vowel-marks are the marks below or above the letter /Dāl/ in the examples below. The letter / Dāl/ has been used to give you an idea of where the vowel is placed.

     The Single Vowel-Marks:

• The single vowel-marks are the basic vowel-marks which add a sound similar to that of a, i or u in the English language to the letter. Please click on the letters with the vowel-marks to hear the pronunciation.

Click on Letters to hear pronunciation

      The Double Vowel-Marks:

• The double vowel-marks signs are an extension of the single vowel-marks. The double vowel signs add the '-n' sound to the single vowel. Please see the letters below. The /Dāl/ has been used to enable us to see the position of the double vowel sign which is called /tanwīn/.  /Tanwīn/ refers to the double form of any vowel, the specific name of the double vowel sign e.g.: double /Fatħah/ (Fatħatān) is also given below as this is unique for each vowel. Click on the letters with the vowel-marks to hear the pronunciation.

Click on Letters to hear pronunciation

• In the next lesson we are going to practice each letter we have covered with each short vowel and long vowel, In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing).