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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.

Transliteration Eng عَرَبي
Habiibii my love (masc.) حَبيبي
Hayaatii my life حَياتي
ruHii my soul روحي
Hayawaan animal (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.

  • 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