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# 2 Long vowels and issues with reading and writing

In Week 1 you were introduced to Arabic vowels. In this week you will learn about long vowels in addition to ‘A t-T āʾ al-marb ū ṭ ah’ and ‘Hamza’, which are also crucial for reading and meaning-making. As a reminder, have a look at the table from the last week:

## Table 4 Vowels in Arabic (repeated from Week 1)

Examples in words | Examples with independent letters | Pronunciation | Vowels
--- | --- | --- | ---
عِلْم - حَقِيبَة | عِ - قِ | I | kasra كَسْرَة below the letter
لُب - نُمُور | لُ - نُ | U | ḍamma ضمّة above the letter
جَمَل - ثَعْلَب | جَ - ثَ | A | Fatḥa فَتْحَة above the letter
مَفْهُوم - عَمَلْ | فْ - لْ | indicates the consonant | Sukūn سُكُون above the letter

Long vowels:

Long vowels in Arabic can appear in three forms:

1. Fatḥa followed by Alif : ā
2. Kasra followed by yāʾ: ī
3. ḍamma followed by wāw: ū

Examples: listen to the following audio and repeat to practice the long vowels in Arabic.

This browser does not support audio playback.

Audio 4

## Table 5 Examples of long vowels in Arabic

1 Fatḥa followed by Alif : ā | زَرَا فَة - خَا لد - مَا جِد
2 Kasra followed by yāʾ: ī | عَلِي م - جَدِي د - طَبِي ب
3 ḍamma followed by wāw: ū | خَرُو ف - ضُمُو ر - زُهُو ر

## Activity 2

15 minutes

Which of the following words contain a long vowel?

حُزْن
سَفِير
أَجَابَ
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OpenLearn - Week 1: Introduction to the Arabic alphabet
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