Arabic Alphabet Quiz — All 28 Letters

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters (حروف الهجاء — Huroof al-Hijaa). They are all consonants or long vowels. Short vowels (فتحة / ضمة / كسرة) are written as small diacritical marks above or below letters and are usually omitted in everyday writing.

Yes. Arabic is written and read from right to left. This applies to text, books, and web pages marked with dir="rtl". However, Arabic numerals (١ ٢ ٣) within text flow right to left while Western numerals (1 2 3) still flow left to right.

The five most challenging letters for native English speakers are: ع (ʕayn — a deep voiced pharyngeal sound with no English equivalent), غ (Ghayn — a voiced uvular fricative, like a French "r"), خ (Kha — like the "ch" in Scottish "loch"), ح (Ḥa — a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, a breathed "h" from deep in the throat), and ق (Qaf — a "k" sound produced at the back of the throat).

ت (Taa) is a full letter that appears anywhere in a word. ة (Taa Marbuta — "tied taa") only appears at the end of words and is typically used to mark feminine nouns or adjectives. When the word is said in isolation it sounds like a soft "a" or "h"; when the word continues (e.g., in a sentence with case vowels), it is pronounced "t". Example: مدرسة (madrasa / school) vs طالب (taalib / student, masculine).

Most motivated beginners can recognise all 28 Arabic letters in 2–4 weeks of daily 15-minute practice. Reading fluently — connecting letters and understanding positional forms in real words — typically takes an additional 1–3 months. Arabic's consistent sound-to-letter mapping makes it considerably more phonetically regular than English once the script is learned.