The Official Al-Arabia Blog
Welcome to Al-Arabia’s Blog!
Here, you’ll find explorations of the Arabic language and culture through essays, short stories, informative posts, multimedia, and more.
If you’re interested in contributing to the blog, we’d love to hear from you!
Commonly Used Phrases in Arabic
Some commonly-used phrases in Arabic to add to your repertoire - with audio!
Understanding the Two “th” Sounds: Challenging sounds in Arabic, part 3
Arabic contains two distinct ‘th’ sounds which are represented by two different single letters.
Understanding the qaf and hamza: Challenging sounds in Arabic
Two of the more challenging sounds of Arabic are the qaf (ق ) and the hamza (ء ). These can be challenging indeed because there are no English or Western language equivalents. On the other hand, these two Arabic sounds CAN BE learned from a competent instructor, with reliable audio examples and sufficient practice.
The Challenges of Learning Arabic
There are several factors that can make Arabic a very challenging language to learn.
The goal of this post is not to dissuade you from learning Arabic, but rather to help you gain an understanding of some of the common differences between Arabic and other languages and how these differences can initially create stumbling blocks as you learn.
The Emphatic Letters in Arabic
Arabic has 4 emphatic letters, which correspond with 4 non-emphatic letters which are familiar and very similar to sounds present in the English alphabet and other Western languages.
This post discusses background on the emphatic letters, common words which use these letters, and a video pronunciation guide.
An Introduction to Hollow Verbs
What are hollow verbs in Arabic, how are they used, and why do they matter?
Arabic in the World
Arabic is categorized as a member of the Semitic language group within the large Afro-Asiatic language family consisting of 300 languages, including a number of languages in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Arabic emerged as a prestigious world language during the 7th century CE during the early period of Islam.