Arabic alphabet, all 28 letters with sounds.

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, written and read from right to left. All of them are consonants. Three of them, alif, waw and ya, also stand for the long vowels ā, ū and ī. The short vowels a, i and u are small marks written above or below the letters, and the Quran is printed with all of them.

The full chart, with all four forms

Most letters join to the letter after them, so each has up to four shapes: alone, at the start of a word, in the middle and at the end. Read the chart from right to left, as Arabic is read.

Letters that do not join

Six letters never join to the letter after them: alif (ا), dal (د), dhal (ذ), ra (ر), zay (ز) and waw (و). After one of these, the next letter starts fresh in its starting shape, even in the middle of a word.

Letters that look alike

Many letters share a shape and differ only in their dots. Learn them in families: ب ت ث (one dot below, two above, three above), ج ح خ (dot inside, none, dot above), د ذ, ر ز, س ش, ص ض, ط ظ, ع غ and ف ق. The look-alike quiz above drills exactly these.

Sounds English does not have

The hardest letters for English speakers are ح (ḥ), ع (ʿ), خ (kh), غ (gh) and ق (q), all made in the throat, and the four heavy letters ص ض ط ظ, said with the back of the tongue raised. Mixing them up can change a word's meaning: قلب (qalb) is "heart", but كلب (kalb) is "dog". Listen to each one many times, and if you can, read to a teacher.

Short vowels and other marks

How long does it take?

Most adults learn to recognise all 28 letters in one to two weeks with 15 minutes a day. Learn four or five letters a day, use the listening quiz every day, and say each letter aloud. Then move on to joining letters and reading words.

The letter recordings are by Ruaa GHAREEB under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Our converted copies are shared under the same licence. Our teachers will check each recording and replace any that fall short of tajwid standards.