Here are all the letters of the alphabet, what they look like, what English letter(s) we’re using to represent them and how each letter is pronounced.

* this is a note for nerds.  The issue is not super critical, but we like to be thorough so we decided to spell it out. If it sounds too detailed and complicated, feel free to ignore it 😉 :

Sometimes you may see a letter in the middle or end of a word that is not taking the shape that you expect based on the table above.

Take for example, the word أرنب (arnab = rabbit).

Why does the ر in the middle of the word look like a ر at the beginning of the word?

And why does the ن in the middle of the word look like a ن in the beginning of a word?

Or look at the word أب (ab = father).

Why does the ب look like a stand alone ب even though it’s at the end of the word?

This is because some letters, like ا, do not connect to the letter after them.

The letters that don’t connect to the letter after them are ا د ذ ر ز و.  We’ll call these letters non-connectors.

If a letter comes after a non-connector, it will look like a letter at the beginning of a word.

In أب, not only is the ب following a non-connector but it is also the end of the word.  That’s why it looks like a standalone letter.

Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing!  If it was, don’t worry about it, it’s something that most people pick up naturally without ever having to think about it.  We just got a little hung up on these details while making this table so we thought we’d spell it out here.  We feel better now :).