Wisam Sharieff – Arabic Sound Series #1

			Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah. I'd like to welcome you to the introduction of the Arabic letters. The
purpose of this goal is to make the sounds that the Arabic letters make a lot easier for you. So
what I'd like you to do is start out with a few helping tools. Number one, if you don't mind
grabbing a mirror, a full faced mirror would be great, doesn't have to be huge. It could even be
FaceTime on your phone, I want you to look into the mirror when you're making these sounds. Number
two, I'd also like you to feel free to rewind these videos and listen to them as often as possible,
we made videos so that you could pause so that you could try to listen to the sound a few times, and
		

			so that you could go back and rewind whenever you need it. Number three, if you're really
adventurous, and you really want to benefit the most out of these next few videos, what I'd like you
to do is record yourself saying the letter and then listen back to what you've said, play it back
here if you're making the sound Similarly, now the mirror is going to show you whether your lips are
moving when Mine aren't rewinding, it is going to give your ear a little bit of time to hear sounds
that maybe you didn't hear previously. And number three, recording yourself is going to give you the
opportunity to see that video can't correct you. So we have nine videos ahead of us. Let's go ahead
		

			and get started with lesson number one. There are 29 letters in the Arabic alphabet. And there are
just a few sounds that we need to make. Some of them are not going to be similar to English, so I'm
not going to be able to use a word for all of them. Now let's take the first letter. It's a straight
line. And that straight line looks like a stick maybe like a tree. So just open your mouth and say,
ah, ah, now this shouldn't take much effort at all. I'd like you to try in English, try the word
apple. Try the word, Apple or application.
		

			It has a soft, simple sound. And it's not very technical. Try it with me and say the word at see the
word Act. Now in Arabic, we're going to take the letter L if that makes an R sound. And let's say
the word together bad then.
		

			Bad then how about another example let's try one together. And that would be and and
		

			try it again. And
		

			And the last example maybe it will help you pronounce things a little clearer is Ma Ra. M L Ra.
		

			Ma Ra. Excellent. So as you can see the first letter in Arabic real simple, easy to make the sound.
I want you to be careful not to over exaggerate. And so all all see the opening of the mouth and the
kind of forcing in the throat. Let's try it again. Ah, and
		

			bad then. I'm out all
		

			excellent. The next three letters, they look like a boat. So the first boat has one boy at the
bottom. Can you say Baa Baa? Let your lips touch and say by the sound that this letter makes the
boat with one boy at the bottom is Baa Baa kind of like a bee. But it's not perfect. So let's try it
together. baboon baboon. Let's try the word Bell raka Bell raka Excellent. Let's try maybe one
that's a little easier. Open your mouth and use the Elif
		

			sub word
		

			Eber were born.
		

			We're born.
		

			But we're born. Okay, not that bad. The second boat, if you look at it, it has two boys in it. Now I
don't want you to tick the sound. I want you to think about the word or the sound there. Their touch
your teeth to that behind the top two teeth, touch your tongue behind the top two teeth and say that
make sure the sound doesn't tick. Try saying they're there. Now let's try one together. And that and
that and that. Now, if you were saying it wrong, you'd hear something like and tell
		

			Ah,
		

			so let's try it together touch the top teeth. That now I want to try a simple one. But I'd like you
to practice it a few times. Doom, Doom, pack your lips and say, Doom.
		

			Doom. Excellent. Now we had the word en da, Doom. And simply put, let's try one, pick your lips
again. Going there, going there. Great. Now thus far, the first three letters sound, I've been
pretty simple. The next letter is the third boat. It has three boys in it, but we don't have the
sound in the English language. So let's try it together. You're gonna bring your tongue out to the
edge of the top teeth, stick your finger out and lick the end of your finger with your tongue. The
guy? Okay, I've got it. So is the tip of my tongue coming up out at the edge of my top teeth. Now I
just like you to simply blow the air between your tongue, your teeth, your tongue in your teeth. Try
		

			it with me. Simple,
		

			simple. Now we're going to try it together and say, Sir, and I know when you watch the video, you
can actually see my tongue, come right up to the edge of the teeth. Right here. Practice it again.
Move your tongue back and forth. And say simple. Excellent. Let's try a few examples together. Three
in Arabic is Salah,
		

			Salah Lhasa. Excellent. Now let's try something a little bit more exciting. Let's put a Kinect on
top of the blow the air and say F Lu F Lu. Now this is not exactly a word but I want to practice
before we get to an actual example. Now an example that you'll find in the Quran is Sooloos Sooloos.
		

			Excellent. Let's try it again. Sooloos.
		

			And a simpler example would be the word Salamina. semina semina. So all you're doing here is blowing
the air between your tongue and the edge of the top teeth. Of the four sounds we've done already.
		

			Back there, and the third one
		

			of the four sounds that we've done. That is the only one we don't necessarily have in English. Make
sure you rewind this cassette, or rewind the tape and see if you can record yourself look into a
mirror saying them and inshallah God willing, you'll find the sounds to be simpler the next time
around.