Windows XP

In Windows XP you will probably have to install the “file for complex script and right to left languages” from the Windows CD.

1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options
2. Select the Languages tab and check the checkbox next to “Install the file for complex script and right to left languages”.
3. Click the OK button and insert your Windows XP CD when prompted. You may need to restart your PC after that.

Congratulations! Now you should be able to read Arabic writing on your PC.

To write in Arabic you need to add Arabic language input.
1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options
2. Select the Languages tab and check the checkbox next to “Install the file for complex script and right to left languages”.
3. Go to Details and then click Add. Choose Arabic (Egypt) and Arabic (101).
4. Click OK twice and wait a few moments.

You can now change the input language from English to Arabic by holding down the ALT key and pressing SHIFT.

For the layout of the Arabic keyboard, see below.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

Both of these operating systems should be able to display Arabic script without any updates having to be installed. To write in Arabic on these two operating systems follow the steps below:
1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options.
2. Select the “Keyboards and Languages” tab and click on “Change Keyboards”.
3. Choose “Add” and then press the + sign next to “Arabic”. Then click on the + sign next to Arabic (Egypt) and check the checkbox next to Arabic (101).
4. Press “OK” and “Apply”.

You can now change the input language from English to Arabic by holding down the ALT key and pressing SHIFT. For the layout of the Arabic keyboard, see below.

Arabic Keyboard Layout

Here is a picture showing the layout of the Arabic keyboard:

Arabic Keyboard Layout

Related posts:

1. Developing Perfect Arabic Pronunciation
2. “How To Write My Name In Arabic”
3. Hot Arabic Tattoos – Important Announcement

Whether you are thinking about getting your name in Arabic as a tattoo or you just want to know what your name would look like written in Arabic letters, you will know exactly what to do after reading these five crucial tips on Arabic name translations.

1. Short vowels turn into long vowels

In Arabic short vowels are usually not written. So a short “e”-sound like in the word “wet” would not be written, resulting in “wt”. However, in foreign names the short vowels are often turned into long vowels that are part of the Arabic alphabet. This is done so that it is easier to recognize the words as names. As an example, the name “Angela” would be written like this in Arabic:

أنجيلا

This is pronounced “anjeelaa”.

2. Some sounds have no equivalent in Arabic

Certain sounds used in English are not present in the Arabic language. In these cases the Arabic letters with the closest sounds are used instead to translate names. For example, the “g”-sound does not exist in Modern Standard Arabic, so “Megan” becomes:

ميغان

which is pronounced “meeghaan”, where the “gh” is like a French “r” from the throat.

Other English sounds that do not have a direct equivalent in Arabic:

• v -> becomes “f”
• p -> becomes “b”
• r -> becomes a trilled “r”, like in Spanish

3. More than one acceptable translation

There often are a number of different acceptable Arabic translations for a single name. This can depend on taste or just convention. Usually, it is a safe bet to go with the name that is more frequently used. One way to find out which translation is more popular is to put the alternatives into a search engine and then compare the number of results returned. (Be cautious though, as some name translations are also words in Arabic or in Persian, which might distort the results.)

4. Arabic equivalent names

For some Western names there are Arabic equivalents. This is especially true for names with a Biblical background, such as David or Abraham, that become Dawood and Ibraheem. In this case one can either go with the Arabic equivalents or with the direct sound translation (“daafeed” and “abrahaam”).

5. Where to get an accurate translation?

If you are looking for the correct way to write your name in Arabic for a tattoo or you need to be sure that it is absolutely accurate, then you should consider getting a professional translation of your name. Why not check out the service I offer here for name translations? Alternatively, you should check out my Arabic Tattoos eBook that contains Arabic translations and designs for over 120 male and female names.

Click here to get your name translated into Arabic now.

Some examples of name translations into Arabic: Rachel in Arabic | Joanne in Arabic | Renata in Arabic | Natasha in Arabic

Related posts:

1. Arabic Tattoo: Faith, Hope, Love
2. My Name In Arabic: Lily
3. Hot Arabic Tattoos – Important Announcement

Love Hate Calligraphy

The design is written with ornamental decorations. What some might disregard as doodles underneath the writings actually consists of a repetition of exactly the same two words – “love hate”.

I really like this calligraphy and it inspired me to attempt my own design of the “love hate” dichotomy in Arabic. The result is this:

Love-Hate Arabic Calligraphy Design

The word for “hate” – الكراهية – is flipped horizontally to indicate that it’s the flip-side of love – الحب. The two words “cross swords” by crossing letters: the raa’ of الكراهية and the laam of الحب, indicating the intertwined nature of the two emotions.

Related posts:

1. Love in Arabic, Natasha: More Arabic Tattoos
2. Arabic Tattoo: Faith, Hope, Love
3. Beauty of the Soul – Calligraphy

Disconnected letters in an attempt to write Christmas in Arabic

What they were trying to write is عيد ملاد , but they ended up with writing each letter disconnected in its isolated form: ع ي د م ل ا د

To be fair, we should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was probably the software program they used to create the pullover design that messed up.

Related posts:

1. Merry Christmas in Arabic
2. Arabic Tattoos – The Three Most Embarrassing Errors
3. Arabic Tattoos, Mistakes and Art

Why is this?

Languages are essentially built on sounds. If I speak English and live in an English-speaking country I expect a speaker to pronounce sounds in a certain way. In German or Spanish I would expect to hear different sounds. When we can’t identify the sound we try and adjust the way we are listening, similar to tuning a radio, but if we cannot guess the sound, the chances are we won’t comprehend what the other person is trying to say.

The Two Blocks of Pronunciation

There are two different elements to good Arabic pronunciation: the pronunciation of individual sounds and words on the one hand and the “melody” or prosody associated with the pronunciation of whole sentences. Both of these are important.

1 Individual sounds

Try pronouncing all the Arabic letters. Notice how your mouth and tongue are moving to produce the sounds. If you can’t figure out how a sound is physically made you will find it very difficult to say it.

Sounds that are the same
Arabic has a lot of sounds that do not exist in English but it also has plenty of sounds in common with other languages.

Difficult sounds
Start by going through a list of the Arabic letters and make a mark next to the ones you find difficult to pronounce. Pay extra attention to these. Try and physically make the sound and observe the movement of your mouth and tongue. Say the alphabet. Look at how children use the alphabet song in English to help them remember the alphabet, doing the same in Arabic will also help you memorize the letters and sounds.

By the way, this here is an awesome “nasheed” version of the Arabic alphabet song:

Read out aloud
Get a short piece of Arabic text from a course book or website and read it out aloud. This technique has two advantages. First, you are testing your ability to pronounce all individual sounds. Secondly you are practising the sounds that you expect to hear and you become used to the sounds of Arabic.

2 Sentence Melody

Arguably, this aspect of pronunciation is the more important one. Many people learn how to pronounce the individual letters and sounds of a language, but still they have a very “foreign” ring to them when they communicate.

This is because their sentence “melody” is not quite right. Italian, for instance has a strong rising and falling rhythm to it, whereas English is somewhat “flatter”. The best way to get your Arabic sentence melody right is to do a lot of listening to recordings by native speakers.

Try to listen repeatedly to the same short recording of one minute length or so and pay extra attention to the way the sentences rise and fall. After a while try to speak along with the recording, only barely making any sound in the beginning and getting louder as you repeat the process. In the end, your own voice should be louder than the actual recording. This process works best with headphones.

When is your pronunciation good enough?

In other words, when to stop focussing on pronunciation? For many Arabic learners getting by in the language is satisfactory.  If we can say what we want, simply, slowly and the person we are speaking to is able to understand us, then our pronunciation is probably good enough for basic communication.  How much better you want to become is up to you after this. Some people have an innate talent for pronunciation and will become very close to sounding like a native. But, even those of us who are not that gifted can achieve a very good level of pronunciation, where the people we speak to will not notice our accent after a few minutes of talking. With the methods described here you too can achieve this level of success with Arabic pronunciation.

Don’t forget that you can learn all the Arabic letters and the Arabic script with my special method here.

Related posts:

1. Arabic Alphabet Pronunciation
2. New: Arabic Letters Application
3. New: Arabic Alphabet Videos

Dear Max,

I know there are online tools where I can enter the word رسول‎ and it
will tell me the translation ‘messenger’ but can you please tell me
somewhere that I can enter رسول‎ and it will tell me the
transliteration ‘rasul’?

thank you

Once I finished writing my reply, I thought that it might be of interest to other Arabic learners. So here it goes:

Hi there,

unfortunately I’ve never seen such a tool. It would certainly be very interesting to see it developed.

One of the problems is of course, that the Arabic script does not usually have the short vowels written out. So رسول could be “raswal”, “risool”, “ruswil”, “rusool” etc.

The program would have to be intelligent enough to know if these words really exist in Arabic. Also, it would have to know some Arabic grammar to distinguish e.g. اكتب “aktub” (I write) from “uktub” (write!).

Generally, this knowledge assumes the ability of identifying words from context.

Ultimately, I think that it would take too much effort, time and money to develop such a program, when the Arabic script can be learned relatively easily with the right method (e.g. using my book The Magic Key To The Arabic Alphabet).

Related posts:

1. More Christmas Stuff
2. Arabic Writing

Writing in Arabic is something that many beginning Arabic learners are afraid of. Many simply don’t know how to begin learning the Arabic alphabet and writing system. In this article I give you some tips on how best to approach Arabic writing and how to master it.

1. Start by learning the individual letters of the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic script might seem difficult at first, but with the right method it can be learned easily. You can read more about a successful Arabic alphabet learning technique here.

2. Proceeed to reading individual words and writing these words yourself. After a few times try to write these words from memory.

3. Start looking at whole sentences of Arabic writing and copy the text. You should get a native Arabic speaker to pronounce the sentnece for you. Or, alternatively, you can start by copying sentences that have short vowels written out.

4. Finally, take a few short articles written in Arabic and copy them out word for word. Make sure that you know how to pronounce each individual word. So it’s best to have a recording by by a native speaker of the article you are copying.

Remember that Arabic writing takes some getting used to, but with consistency you’ll master it eventually. Also, remember to make learning Arabic writing a fun activity to do. Your brain just doesn’t learn well when it’s bored…

Related posts:

1. Quick And Easy Way To Learn The Arabic Alphabet
2. Arabic Alphabet Pronunciation
3. Arabic Alphabet