The Letters Raa & Zeiy

 

·        The next letters of the alphabet are Raa and Zeiy

 

 

·        Raa and Zeiy look very similar except that Raa has no dots and Zeiy has one dot on top

 

·        Raa sounds mostly like the letter R in English
Zeiy sounds pretty much like the letter Z in English

 

·        The name of the letter Zeiy is sometimes pronounced Zeiy (“Zaa-ee”)
And other times it’s pronounced Zaa
Zeiy is more popular in modern Arabic

 

Listening & Pronouncing

 

·        Raa sounds mostly like R; here’s how you pronounce it:
Pronounce R and check where your tongue is while pronouncing
Just bring your tongue a little bit forward (towards your teeth)

 

·        Zeiy sounds like Z; there’s really no difference

 

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear

 

 

Reading & Writing

 

·        Raa and Zeiy have the same body

Raa has no dot
But Zeiy has one dot on top

 

·        Raa and Zeiy do NOT connect to the following letter
But the space between them and the next letter is really small most of the time

 

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـر	ـر ـ	ر ـ	ر
ـز	ـز ـ	ز ـ	ز

 

·        Exercise: how many Raa and Zeiy do you see in the following texts?

 

ترى بعر الآرام في عرصاتها          وقيعانها كأنه حب فلفل

Answer [4 Raa, 0 Zeiy]

 

أزف الترحل غير أن ركابنا          لما تزل برحالنا وكأن قدن

Answer [4 Raa, 2 Zeiy]

 

·        Raa/Zeiy and Daal/Dhaal are not hard to differentiate
The Daal/Dhaal body has an angle
But the Raa/Zeiy body is a big, downwards curve

 

·        Let’s compare them

 

end	middle	beginning	by itself
ـد	ـد ـ	د ـ	د	د/ذ
ـر	ـرـ	رـ	ر	ر/ز

 

·        Exercise: copy the following words

 

رب

جاحز

درز

ذرب

 

Proceed to lesson 10