The Arabic Letters Jeem, Haa, KHaa

The Letters Jeem, Haa, KHaa

·        The next letters are Jeem, Haa and KHaa

·        We are grouping these letters together because their bodies are the same; only the dots are different

·        Jeem corresponds to the English J
Haa corresponds somewhat to the English H
KHaa corresponds somewhat to the combination KH

Listening & Pronouncing

·        Jeem corresponds exactly to the English J, like in the word “Jet”

·        Haa is like H except it sounds very deep and it comes from the middle of the throat
In English, when you pronounce H, your breath starts from the middle of your mouth
But in Arabic, your breath starts from the middle of your throat which makes it sound very deep and throaty
In the diagram below, the Haa comes from below the vocal chords, near the area labelled Trachea

Source: http://www.doctorspiller.com/oral%20anatomy.htm

·        The letter KHaa doesn’t really have an equivalent sound in English
But when we need to represent this sound from other languages, we use the combination KH or CH
Like the German name “Johann Sebastian Bach”
In the diagram above, KHaa comes from above the vocal chords, near the area labelled Larynx

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear in the following recordings
Try to identify all instances of Jeem, Haa and KHaa

Reading

·        Jeem, Haa and KHaa each have the same body
Their body is quite unique so we don’t need to compare it to other letters, really
It’s an angle on top of a big loop

·        Jeem has one dot underneath its body
Haa has no dots at all
and KHaa has one dot on top of the body

·        Careful not to confuse the ج with the ب; they both have one dot underneath the body

·        Careful not to confuse the خ with other letters; many, many letters have one dot on top of their body

·        Use the shape of the body (an angle) to identify these three letters

·        Exercise: how many Jeem, Haa and KHaa do you see in the following sentences?

اولئك آبائي فجئني بمثلهم اذا جمعتنا، يا جرير، المجامع

Answer [4 Jeem, 0 Haa, 0 KHaa]

ثمانية حجج

Answer [2 Jeem, 1 Haa, 0 KHaa]

خَليلِيَ كُفا لا تَلُوما مُتَيَماً لا تَقْتَلاَ صَباً بِلَوْمِكُما ظُلما

Answer [0 Jeem, 0 Haa, 1 KHaa]

Writing

·        Exercise: copy the following words 3 times each

حاجب

حَبَثَ

Proceed to lesson 7