Arabic Letters Taa and Zaa

The Letters Taa and Zaa

·        The next letters of the Arabic alphabet are Taa and Zaa

·        They have the same body except Zaa has a dot on top of the loop, to right of the line

·        Taa is NOT the Taa we know from Baa Taa THaa
The sound is similar but this one is much deeper

·        Zaa sounds a lot like Zaal and Zeiy
But Zaa is much deeper than either of those two
We’ll talk about the differences shortly

Listening & Pronouncing

·        ط is a much deeper and “thicker” version of ت
Let’s compare the two sounds:

·        ط is pronounced the same way as ت
Your tongue touches the part where your top central incisors meet your gums

·        But there are some subtle differences

o   When you pronounce ت your tongue stays almost flat, but when you pronounce ط the center of your tongue sinks down

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear

·        Exercise: read the words below

·        Zaa is a much deeper version of Zaal
Let’s compare the two:

Source: http://www.gtchild.co.uk/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=66

·        Zaa and Zaal are pronounced pretty much the same
The tip of your tongue touches the bottom of your top central incisors

·        But there are some differences

o   When you pronounce Zaa the center of your tongue sinks down, but when you pronounce Zaal it does not sink that much (or at all)

·        Exercise: repeat the words you hear

·        Exercise: repeat the words below

·        Exercise: which recording in the pair has the ت and which has the ط?

·        Exercise: which recording has the Zaal, which has the Zeiy and which has the Zaa?

Reading & Writing

·        The Taa/Zaa body is a loop followed by a vertical line
The loop is a lot like the loop of ص and ض, but there’s no cusp

·        To write the Taa/Zaa body:
Start from a point
Make a loop by going up and to the right
Then complete the loop
When the loop is done, lift your pen and draw the vertical line from top to bottom

·        The line of Taa/Zaa is like crossing T’s and dotting I’s in English
You usually do it when you’re done writing the whole word
And the same goes for dots in Arabic

·        When people write by hand, they sometimes end up putting the line of the Taa/Zaa body very close to the loop, or even on top of it
That’s okay

·        Exercise: copy the following words to the best of your ability

ظريف

غيظ

ارسطاطاليس

·        Careful not to confuse the line of Taa/Zaa with an Aleph
The line of Taa/Zaa will always have the Taa/Zaa loop before it

·        Exercise: do you see an Aleph in the following words?

ضامر

Answer [YES]

ظالم

Answer [YES]

Proceed to lesson 15