Islamic Phrases in Arabic

The Arabic Alphabet

The Arabic Alphabet consists of 28 letters. Each letter may have up to four shapes depending upon its location in a word. The letter wil appear one way if it is at the beginning of a word, another way in the middle of a word, a third way at the end of a word, and a fourth way if the letter is in isolation. All Arabic letters are connected to each other except for 6 one-way connectors (we will learn about these later). One way connectors will be attached to what proceeds them but never to what follows them.

Welcome to "Students of Arabic"

Welcome to "Students of Arabic"!  This blog has been created for those of you who wish to study and gain proficiency in the Arabic Language. My name is Laura and I have been teaching Arabic at the university level for more than 15 years. Arabic is my passion and I would like to share it with you. Please feel free to tell me what you would like to see on the site and feel free to ask questions. This site is for you!

The study of Arabic is a challenging but highly rewarding process that requires time, dedication and self-discipline. Arabic, unlike English, does not belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Rather, it is a Semitic language, one of only three still in active use today (The other two are Hebrew and Aramaic). In addition, Arabic does not use the Latin alphabet as its script. These two factors mean that students cannot expect to learn Arabic with the speed or ease with which they learn languages that are closely related to English (e.g. French, Spanish or German) and which share the same alphabet.  Studying Arabic requires a substantial commitment of your time and energy. As with any foreign language study, your successful acquisition of Arabic will depend on regular work and an active effort to make the most of all opportunities you have exposure to.