.taa'

[IMAGE] This letters sounds vaguely like an English T. But the position of the tongue is different. It is a covered letter, and you should darken the sound relaxing the back of the mouth.

Writing the .taa'

First draw an egg, then all the letters which follow the .taa' (if it's the last letter of the word, add a small horizontal tail, with takeoff, about half a square or one square long). Then stick on it a 'alif stroke and you're done.

In some computer fonts, the word-final .t has not a tail but a stump. That's cheap, and nasty.

Westerners doing this for the first time often take great care to make the alif vertical and put its tip exactly on the small end of the egg, as seen in print. Most Arabs are not so careful. Some of them make the alif lean 45 degrees forward, or make it float over the egg, or stick it onto it, or draw the alif upwards just after drawing the egg.

All those styles of drawing are correct. But you might as well stick to the "egg, then other letters, then alif" recipe, at least for now.

the Arabic Alphabet the Arabic Alphabet
.daad
arriba Alphabet Table
.zaa'