ع — ayn
«ayn» is a consonant of the Arabic script, read as “ayn”. A squeezed throat with a vowel drawn through it: say "a" while gently tightening your throat, the way you groan the start of "uh-oh". The transcription marks it with ʿ. For example, in the word “عين” — eye. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters in total. A little crust with a tail. The most recognizable letter of the script and the hardest one for a beginner. It appears, for example, in the word “نهارك سعيد” — good day.
In short
| Character | ع |
| Name | ayn |
| Sound | ayn |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 21st of 31: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ق and غ, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type ع
- 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+0639 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 0639.
- Unicode code point: U+0639. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A squeezed throat with a vowel drawn through it: say "a" while gently tightening your throat, the way you groan the start of "uh-oh". The transcription marks it with ʿ
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 |
|---|---|---|
| initial | عـ | — |
| medial | ـعـ | — |
| final | ـع | — |
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.
- عينʿайнeye
The character in the “ع غ — the throat: ayn and ghayn” group
The sounds English does not have at all, and which cannot be approximated without loss. Ayn is a squeezed throat with a vowel drawn through it. Ghayn is the same throat with voice — a gargled g. The transcription marks ayn with the sign ʿ.
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 «ayn» it is “ayn”, as in the word “عين”), 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 ع read?
As “ayn” — it is a consonant of the Arabic script. A squeezed throat with a vowel drawn through it: say "a" while gently tightening your throat, the way you groan the start of "uh-oh". The transcription marks it with ʿ. For example, in the word “عين” — eye.