ق — qaaf
«qaaf» is a consonant of the Arabic script, read as “q (deep k)”. A "k" made deep in the throat, with a squeezed feeling. Further back than the k of "cat" — you feel it below the palate. For example, in the word “قمر” — moon. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters in total. Two dots on top of a small oval with a tail. You know it from "Quran" — and from qadi, a judge. It appears, for example, in the word “إلى اللقاء” — see you.
In short
| Character | ق |
| Name | qaaf |
| Sound | q (deep k) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 20th of 31: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ظ and ع, appears in 713 words of this site.
How to type ق
- 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+0642 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 0642.
- Unicode code point: U+0642. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A "k" made deep in the throat, with a squeezed feeling. Further back than the k of "cat" — you feel it below the palate
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 | قـ | — |
| medial | ـقـ | — |
| final | ـق | — |
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.
- قمرкамарmoon
The character in the “ص ض ط ظ ق — the heavy consonants and the deep q” group
The emphatic consonants are "heavy" sounds with no soft partner: the tongue is pulled back and the whole syllable darkens. The pairs circle round: heavy s/d/t/z, told apart by skeleton and dots. Next to them the deep q, made down in the throat — it shares its sound with ف but not its depth.
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 «qaaf» it is “q (deep k)”, as in the word “قمر”), 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 ق read?
As “q (deep k)” — it is a consonant of the Arabic script. A "k" made deep in the throat, with a squeezed feeling. Further back than the k of "cat" — you feel it below the palate. For example, in the word “قمر” — moon.
What is the letter ق called?
Qaaf. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Arabic script: it is called “qaaf” and reads as “q (deep k)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.