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Things to know about Arabic

Arabic is spoken in more than twenty countries, from Morocco to Egypt to Saudi Arabia. It is the language of Islam, one of the world's major religions, and has a literary tradition that dates back more than twelve centuries. Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages, which also includes Hebrew. The instructions in this topic apply whether you are learning Modern Standard Arabic or a regional dialect such as Iraqi Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Syrian Arabic, and so on.

Using Arabic Lessons

Arabic is written in a flowing script that runs from right to left, the opposite of English. Most Arabic letters connect to the letters preceding and following them, just as in English cursive writing. Therefore, letters often change shape depending on their placement within a word. Arabic is usually written using only consonants and long vowels, although there are small marks which can be used above or below letters to indicate short vowels.

Some content in this application shows the native Arabic script along with the transliterations of the Arabic words and phrases. Others may have just native characters or just transliterations. If your content only shows native Arabic script, or shows the native script before the transliterations, you will need to type the Arabic characters in various activities and assessments. Follow the instructions below to do so.

Note: If your content only shows transliterations, or shows transliterations before native characters, see Using Transliterated Arabic Lessons further down.

To type Arabic characters:

  1. Position your cursor somewhere where you can type, and verify that the virtual keyboard layout is set to Arabic.
  2. Locate the character you want on the virtual keyboard, then click on it or press the corresponding key on your physical keyboard. The virtual keyboard shows the stand-alone form of each letter, but the characters will automatically change form to connect to one another as you type. Most punctuation marks, such as the period, the question mark, and the comma, are available by pressing the Shift key. Certain additional characters are available by clicking Special Characters beside the virtual keyboard.

See Typing special scripts for additional typing instructions.

Using Transliterated Arabic Lessons

Some Arabic lessons in this application may be transliterated - written with the letters of the Latin alphabet, from left to right. Transliterated lessons can help you master vocabulary and pronunciation before tackling a new writing system. If your content only shows transliterations, or shows transliterations before native characters, you do not have to type actual Arabic characters. You can type the transliterations in any activity or assessment that requires typed answers.

Different dialects of Arabic may use different transliteration systems to better match their local pronunciation, and the transliterations for some Arabic dialects may use diacritic marks to indicate certain sounds. You can type these diacritic marks by typing the vowel, then selecting the character you want from the set of special characters which appears. See Typing accents or special characters for details.

Also, be aware that the transliterations may use capital and lowercase letters to represent different Arabic characters. For that reason, you may see capital letters in the middle of words, and you will notice that the first word in a transliterated Arabic sentence is not always capitalized. You do not have to match the capitalization when you type answers.

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