Moving on to Arabic Lesson Two

So far, in the first Arabic Lesson, you have seen that He struck in Arabic is Daraba.

If you want to say She struck, you add the letter Taa at the end of Daraba. Daraba, then, becomes Darabat.

ضَرَبَتْ

Daraba = He struck

Darabat = She struck



Note that when Baa is attached to Taa the form of Baa is shortened

You will also note a new sign in this word which is

ْ
This sign is called Sukoon. When a Sukoon is present over a letter, it means that the letter has no vowel.


Important: Two letters which have Sukoon on them cannot follow one another because pronouncing the word would become impossible in such a case. When two words follow one another and the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the last word have sukoon, then special rules come under play which allow pronunciation of the word. You will learn about these in following lessons.



So far you have been introduced to four constants:

• Daad
• Raa
• Baa
• Taa

Now you will learn about Kaaf. It is like the K in the word keep. It is written as


ك


When the letter is joined to a word which follows it, then it is written as

Look at the following word in which this letter is used

Katabat

كَتَبَتْ

Note that this word the Taa is present in the middle of the word as well. When the Taa is present in the middle of a word and connects to a letter before and after it, it is written as

As a beginner you may find the Baa and the Taa to be confusing. Just remember, that Baa has one dot underneath it while Taa has two dots over it!

ب  =  Baa with one dot under!

ت  =  Taa with two dots over!!!

To understand how the word Kataba is pronounced think of the word Canada. Canada is pronounced Ca-na-da.



Similarly, Kataba and Daraba are pronounced as


Ka-ta-ba

Da-ra-ba


It should be noted that when the fatha is pronounced in combination with a constant which is as strong as Daad, then the fatha takes on a sort of "o" sound and the pronunciation of Da-ra-ba is more like Do-ra-ba.