‫ع‬

ʿAyn
ʿ
‫ﻣﻊ‬ ‫ﻣﻌﺎ‬ ‫ﻋﺎ‬
ʿAyn is from the next set of twin sister letters. ʿAyn’s head stays above the line,
whereas its tummy goes below the line without returning back to the line. Its
head is the same shape as a hamza’s head. The transliteration symbol for this
letter is a forwards facing apostrophe ʿ. The sound of this letter is similar to the
sound in the throat when one is about to vomit! This letter often causes people
problems in pronunciation but the important thing is to not overdo it. To know if
you are doing the sound correctly, say it whilst putting your finger on your Adam’s
apple and you should feel it move.
 ‫غ‬
Ghayn
gh
‫ﻣﻎ‬ ‫ﻣﻐﺎ‬ ‫ﻏﺎ‬
Ghayn is the twin sister of the letter ʿayn. Its head stays above the line and has a
dot, whereas its tummy goes below the line without returning back to the line. Its
head is the same shape as a hamza’s head. The transliteration symbol for this
letter is gh. The sound of this letter is similar to the sound in the throat when
gargling. Be careful not to confuse the sound of this letter with the letter khāʾ
(khāʾ sounds like you are clearing your throat).
 ‫ف‬
Fāʾ
f
‫ﻣﻒ‬ ‫ﻣﻔﺎ‬ ‫ﻓﺎ‬
Fāʾ stays on the line. Its head is like a circle with a dot on top and then its body is
like bāʾ, tāʾ and thaʾ. The transliteration symbol for this letter is f. It has a whispery
quality which comes from touching the tip of your top front teeth on the inside
wet part of your bottom lip as opposed to the dry outer part. When fāʾ comes in
the middle of a word it can be easily confused with ghayn, but we must remember
that ghayn in the middle of a word has a more triangular appearance whereas fāʾ
is circular.
 ‫ق‬
Qāf
q
‫ﻣﻖ‬ ‫ﻣﻘﺎ‬ {،
:} ‫ﻗﺎ‬
Qāf is the cousin of fāʾ. Whilst its head looks like the head of fāʾ, its body goes
below the line and then reaches back up to the line. Qāf has 2 dots on its head.
The transliteration symbol for this letter is q and its sound resembles the sound of
choking.
 ‫ك‬
Kāf
k
‫ﻣﻚ‬ ‫ﻣﻜﺎ‬ ‫ﻛﺎ‬
Kāf is one of the more complicated letters but only because it changes shape in an
unexpected way when it comes at the beginning and in the middle of words.
When standing alone or at the end of a word, kāf has something which resembles
a hamza in its tummy. This symbol disappears when kāf comes at the beginning or
end of words and its angle changes. It has the same height as the letter alif. The
transliteration symbol for this letter is k and is just like an English k sound.
ّShaddais a symbol which is written above the letter
along with one of the three short vowels.
We usually transliterate it with a double consonant.
When we put shadda on a letter we essentially end up
with two versions of that letter, one with a sukūn on
and one with a ḥaraka on.
Tanwīn is what we call a symbol which consists of two
fatḥas, two kasras or two ḍammas. This only ever
happens at the end of a word.
Tanwīn actually has a grammatical function which we will
learn later. Tanwīn is pronounced as the short vowel
sound followed by a “n”.

ً ٍ ٌ
an in un
(two fatḥas) (two kasras) (two ḍammas)