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I hate my husband

Habiibii, Hayaati, and Hayawaan all start with the letter ح, the sound does not exist in English.

With your mouth open, make a raspy, breathy sound as if you're breathing on glass to fog it up. You wanna constrict the muscles inside your throat so that air can just barely squeeze through.

Your vocal cords should not vibrate.

We transliterate ح as a capital H, so as not to be confused with the h sound in English.

TransliterationEngعَرَبي
Habiibiimy love (masc.)حَبيبي
Hayaatiimy lifeحَياتي
ruHiimy soulروحي
Hayawaananimal (masc.)حَيوان

 

Imagine you just swallowed a spoonful of very hot chili. And yes when ح is the initial letter it looks like this حـ, so that we can connect the following letter to it. Remember, Arabic is written from Right to Left.

 


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36 comments
  • So the marker for possession ي is pronounced similar to the i like the i in sit? Are all possessive markers attached to the end of a word? (No need to go into depth if that's gunna be a later lesson)

    • It's pronounced like the ee in 'feel' or 'beep', and it's just a letter. It's transliterated as ii.

      Are all possessive markers attached to the end of a word?

      Yeah, they are actually called Attached Pronouns, and they are used for more than just expressing possession.

  • is there a good textbook you can recommend? I need some exercises or something to engage with, simply reading will not have me remember anything.

    Also I love homework.

    • I'm gonna include exercises for sure, but for now it's kinda too early for us to be able to do that.

      is there a good textbook you can recommend?

      I know this might be a bit shocking but I'd say no there ain't, because Arabic gets very little attention from the language learning industry and a lot of the material is aimed at "diplomats" wink wink, that is why I make the material myself. But when it comes to the alphabet I guess any book will do, maybe check Alif Baa Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds.

      Edit: By material I mean the pdfs I share with my students, not these posts.

  • In the "Hayawaan" transliteration for حَيوان, is the "a" between the "y" and "w" part of "ya", part of "aw", or an implicit third thing?

    • That a is a short vowel, and vowels modify the preceding letter, so it's part of ya.

      Ha-ya-waan

      • If short vowels aren't always marked, and they modify a preceding letter, does that mean there are no Arabic words that start with them? Or is there a silent consonant like the chosongul/hangul ㅇ used in Korean? Or does everyone just have to learn how to read those words anyway, like with English's bough cough dough ought rough through?

        I notice that if we combine حَبيبي (Habiibii) with yesterday's قطر ('aTr), then today's table header عَرَبي —which I guess means Arabic—looks like its transliteration is [something]arabii, which makes me wonder about what that something is. Looking forward to more lessons.

36 comments