Thread: beginner pronunciation questions

i'm confused as to how the letter
ع
is pronounced. if someone could explain it to me or some kind of trick for learning it, i would be very grateful. also, i would like some help with pronunciation of emphatic letters. i think that is what they are called atleast. the last thing is the glottal stop or hamza. i'm not entirely certain on how to do this correctly. for an example, what is the difference between
شاي
شيء
if you can't read those, they are the words for tea and thing
thanks for the help
sorry about the alignment and everything but typing in arabic screwed
everything up and somehow changed the order of my sentence

anyone?пожалуйста?

Hi there,
The sound ع is quite difficult to explain how is it pronounced, so I have just recorded my self pronouncing it.
rouetbi

Hope I was able to help

hey thanks.would you mind posting pronunciations of the emphatic letters please?thanks again

Originally Posted by Murmur

hey thanks.would you mind posting pronunciations of the emphatic letters please?thanks again

There was no answer.

I've listened to these sounds on CD's for Teaching Yourself Arabic. The textbook is so-so but the audio's are OK and they give pronunciation of each letter/sound.

about
شيء
شاي

شيء is prounounced shorter than شاي
شيء is 'something'
شاي is 'tea'

شيء is pronounced as: SHaY' (dont make the 'a' stressful)
شاي is pronounces as: SHAI (the 'a' is longer!)