ا — alif
«alif» is a vowel of the Arabic script, read as “long aa”. A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". The short "a" is not drawn in writing at all. For example, in the word “كتاب” — book. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters in total. A vertical stroke. At the start of a word alif often carries a hamza on top: أ or إ. It appears, for example, in the word “مرحبا” — hi.
In short
| Character | ا |
| Name | alif |
| Sound | long aa |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 1st of 31: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, after it comes و, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ا
- On a phone: add the Arabic keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0627 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0627.
- Unicode code point: U+0627. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". The short "a" is not drawn in writing at all
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| final | ـا | joins only from the right |
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- كتابкитаабbook
The character in the “long vowels: alif, waw, yaa” group
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. كتاب is "ktb", and it reads kataba — the vowels are restored from grammar. Only the long ones are written, with these three signs. Waw and yaa stay consonants ("w" and "y") whenever they have a vowel of their own next to them.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «alif» it is “long aa”, as in the word “كتاب”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 28 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Arabic character ا read?
As “long aa” — it is a vowel of the Arabic script. A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". The short "a" is not drawn in writing at all. For example, in the word “كتاب” — book.
What is the letter ا called?
Alif. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Arabic script: it is called “alif” and reads as “long aa”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.