By The Arabic School
Most Arabic is written without its short vowels. Books, newspapers and most classical texts leave out the ḥarakāt, and the reader supplies them. For many students this is the hardest step in learning Arabic. This article explains how it is crossed.
Reading rests on three sciences
Reading draws on al-Aṣwāt (the sounds), al-Imlāʾ (the written form) and Matn al-Lughah (the meaning). The learner begins with the letters, their points of articulation, the short and long vowels, sukūn, shaddah and tanwīn. Students who recite the Qurʾān with tajwīd have done much of this work already. The rules of spelling follow: the forms of hamzah, the tāʾ marbūṭah, and the alif written as yāʾ.
The four stages
- Fully vowelled graded text. Graded readers with images and glosses.
- Vowelled classical prose. Zād uṭ-Ṭālibīn, then selected verses of the Qurʾān, then Qiṣaṣ an-Nabiyyīn.
- Lightly vowelled prose. Mufīd uṭ-Ṭālibīn, al-Qirāʾah al-Rāshidah and Madārij al-Qirāʾah, Levels 1 to 3.
- Unvowelled prose. The reader supplies the vowels from Naḥw and Ṣarf.
Iʿrāb is the bridge
The step from stage 3 to stage 4 is where most students stall. It is crossed by iʿrāb, not by more reading alone. To vowel a word correctly you must know two things: its pattern, which comes from Ṣarf, and its ending, which comes from Naḥw. A student who can parse can read unvowelled text. A student who cannot will guess.
This is why a balanced programme keeps both going. A student who only studies rules will understand but not read fluently. A student who only reads will read fluently but make errors of iʿrāb.
Graded readers
A graded reader keeps the grammar and vocabulary inside one level, so the student reads for meaning rather than decoding. Each new word is glossed with an Arabic definition and an English equivalent side by side, and shown with an image.
Building vocabulary
Words are gathered by four routes, added in this order as the student advances:
- Graded reading in a structured programme such as al-ʿArabiyyah Bayna Yadayk.
- Vocabulary poems, such as Muthallath Quṭrub.
- Memorising poetry, which fixes words in the tongue with their context.
- Dictionary work, from A2 onwards.
Keep a vocabulary log for reading and a separate one for listening. Write each word with full tashkīl, its root, its pattern, its meaning, and the sentence it came from.
Study with The Arabic School
Our Arabic Reading 101 course follows this progression, from Zād uṭ-Ṭālibīn through Qurʾānic verses to Qiṣaṣ an-Nabiyyīn, applying grammar sentence by sentence.
For the full map of the sciences, the two classical routes and the texts for every level, download the free guide, Learning Arabic: Skills and Systems. You can also see all our courses and prices or book a one-to-one class.