The Arabic alphabet and letter shapes
Arabic · Key Stage 2 · The School
Right to left, joined up
Arabic reads from right to left. Most letters join to their neighbours, like joined-up handwriting. A letter can look different depending on where it sits: alone, at the start, in the middle, or at the end of a word. Twenty-eight letters, each with up to four shapes.
One letter, four shapes
Take ب, the letter for the b sound. Alone it is ب. At the start of a word it is بـ. In the middle it is ـبـ. At the end it is ـب. The sound never changes. Only the shape does, because it must join to its neighbours.
Six letters that never join forward
A few letters — و ز ر ذ د ا — only ever join to the letter before them, never to the one after. That breaks up a word into visible chunks, which is actually useful for a new reader: it shows you where one part ends.
Spot the shape
Look at مَكْتَب, desk. It has four letters: م ك ت ب. Read right to left: م starts the word, ك and ت sit in the middle joined both sides, ب ends it. Now try كِتاب, book: ك at the start, ت and ا in the middle, ب at the end. Same letters, different words, same shape rules.