:meow-bug: 5 and 6 from the top left corner are how people write it irl. And this is how computers do it لا.

:meow-fiesta: Yalla, let’s learn some more Arabic :meow-fiesta:

ل + ا = لا

The letter ل “laam” is just an l and it’s transliterated as l

 

The letter ا “’alif” is the long counterpart of the short vowel fatHa   َ   from 2 days ago.

The ’alif can make two sounds: a “light” aa as in “dad” and a “dark” aa as in “far.”

It's called dark because it's produced further back in the throat

The dark ا happens with the emphatic letters, basically these are letters pronounced further back in our throat and they affect the vowels in the same way.

 

BTW فار "faar", pronounced like far in English, means rat in colloquial.

ف + ا + ر = فار

 

Final Medial Initial Independent / Isolated
ـل ـلـ لـ ل
ـا ـا ا ا

The ’alif is written from top to bottom ا in the independent position, but if it is connected to a preceding letter, it is drawn from bottom up ـا

The alif is whats called a one-way connector i.e. it only connect to the letter before it, so the letter following it will always be in the initial position :think-about-it: makes sense?

 

One-way connectors

ا د ذ ر ز و

We’ll learn why the rest are one-way connectors in another lesson, it all makes sense.

 

Why? Why is the ‘alif ا a one-way connector?

How else would we tell the ‘alif ا and the laam ل apart? The one that is a straight line ا doesn’t connect to the following letter, while the one that has a tail ل does.

So لا, meaning no, is pronounced laa :bugs-no:

Listen to it here and here

Here is what @bubbalu said about their experience learning Arabic with me, which you probably didn’t get to read:

It was a great joy to study with mu3allim last year! They are very committed to language learning and internationalism. Over about four months I was able to get a good grasp of the alphabet, phonics, and simple declarative sentences. I am an early elementary teacher and work with a lot new arrival students and mu3allim helped me build the vocabulary to help them feel at ease and teach English phonics.

I recommend any comrades seriously interested in learning Arabic to take lessons with them!

4 months might seem like a lot of time but we only did an hour a week.

 

Previous Lessons

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

Answer the questions in the comments :stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2: