Arabic from the Beginning – Part One

The purpose of this book is to set students on the road to learning Modern Standard Arabic by equipping them with all the skills they need to read and write vowelised Arabic texts. By the end of the book students should be able to:

• identify all the letters of the Arabic alphabet in their isolate and joined forms
• know the difference between the long and short vowel sounds and how to read them, including the diphthongs ‘-ay’ and ‘-ow’
• read the tanween word endings
• understand the roles of sukoon and shadda
• read words containing a hamza, no matter its position within a word
• recognise the alif al-maqs̩ura
• identify the sun and moon letters and understand their effect on the pronunciation of words defined by ‘al-‘
• read fully vowelised Arabic text

Although this work is primarily intended for classroom use, it is also well-suited to self-taught learners. To this end, an eighteen-lesson YouTube series under the same title has been produced by the author to support the learner in mastering the reading and writing of the Arabic script and to help foster good pronunciation.

This workbook assumes no prior knowledge of Arabic whatsoever. Clear, simple explanations introduce each new topic, supported by a wealth of exercises and activities to reinforce the learning process and ensure rapid progression. The use of colour coding to highlight each point under discussion, as well as the inclusion of quality colour illustrations, serve to enhance the learning experience. The materials included offer extensive reading and writing practice as well as the opportunity for dictation exercises as a means of monitoring learners’ progress.

By the end of the book, students should have gained sufficient competency in reading and writing the Arabic script to be able to progress to part two of the series (under preparation) in which they will start to learn Arabic grammar and vocabulary, read and construct sentences with understanding, and begin speaking this important international language.