Writing the Arabic Alphabet
Sometimes people say about the Arabic language it is so difficult on them, especially when they start writing the letters or trying remembering them.
An Overview of Writing Arabic Letters
The Arabic alphabet does not use upper or lowercase letters as we see in the Latin alphabet. However, each letter (with a few exceptions) can be written differently based on its location in a word. There are four forms that each letter can take:
Initial (at the start)
Medial (in the middle)
Final (at the end)
Isolated (all by itself)
When you write in Arabic, it’s normally done in a cursive/script form, meaning that almost all the letters are connected and flow into each other.
The four different shapes exist to make it easier for that flow to happen. It may sound like a lot to learn, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll see how easy it is. The initial and medial shapes tend to be very similar and the isolation and final shapes resemble each other fairly closely, so it’s quite easy to learn the shapes and learn to connect the letters in different words.
We offer our students some pictures for each letter, such as tracking the dots, copying the letter, etc.
