Just imagine you are about to strangle the infidel inside you so as to prevent him from insulting God. Actually the best and most elegant way to pronounce it is to imitate a baby letting out just a little burp, no more : most Arabs to whom classical Arabic is definitely not their native language and who rather speak something midway between Arabic and another semitic language (like punic in Maghreb or coptic in Egypt or Aramaic in Iraq) have an awful accent. Its only effect, actually, is to alter the pronunciation of the following vowel : the "a is like the typical Southern Italian a, the "u is like French eu in feu or o in robe, "i is like Russian y or French ê, and "sukkoon is like English a in about or u in ugly as short as possible. Just pronounce fa"ala (he did) with the first a as in English father and the second like a in prima donna or even a as in cat and the " is just the minimal throat effort to pass from one to another.
For people familiar with phonetics, Maha's advice on saying "aaaaaaa" until there is less space in your throat is really good - she's basically taught you how to make a pharyngeal approximant. It helps to push the back of your tongue near the opening of your throat (which you will notice starts happening anyway as you make a long "aaaaa"). Also, your 3ayn does not need to have that slight "growl" at its end that you might have heard some Arabs using. It's another way of pronouncing 3ayn, you can just stick to the softer pronunciation (the softer pronunciation is more common in the Levant and Egypt anyway). Look up pharyngeal approximant and voiced epiglottal trill for more information!
Thank you!! I always thought the "growl" was the "correct" way but knowing, now, that it can be pronounced soft makes it much easier(:. Its quicker in a way and hells with gretiing through the word with much more ease
I've tried learning Arabic for several months now and this is the first time someone managed to offer me a demonstration of how this sound is produced in a way that actually works for me. Thank you so much!!!
It's weird because although I speak Swedish natively, some letters of arabic still feel kind of natural, such as خ for example, which from what I have alread heard, doesn't appear to be as hard to pronounce as some claim it to be, atleast for me. That said I am still in the early stages of learning the language so I might be wrong.
Great lesson! It is also worth noting that one can pronounce the a'yn by following these two easy steps: 1. Sing the lowest possible note you can 2. Try to sing one note even lower than that. Voila! That's how you will get the 'choking' that Maha tries to explain. Thank you Maha, maybe put this somewhere so people can see if they find it easier with these steps?
Thank you very much for your videos. I'm an american who has decided to learn Arabic just for the fun of learning. I'm doing it all by myself. (no class or books) So, I really appreciate your videos.
@@deyaniragallardo3789 Yes. Yes it was. I was really sick and out of it... I feel dumb as hell :S haha ahhhh. I speak a lot of Arabic due to exposure to the language through traveling and friends, but I have always had issues with ع. It just made me feel better to hear other ppl's stories lol. Thank you 🤪
Maha, this has helped me so much! I'd never found before someone explaining that the "aaa" sound comes before the "ayn", and when I tried it sounds so much better. I was trying to do the "ayn" right at the very beginning, and it was so difficult. So grateful for your explanation! شكراً
Henrik Alstad-Kontio I have the same reason for trying to learn this, although I also want to try to learn Arabic (once the Duolingo course is finished)
you have to find a palestinian friend ! he will teach you the real letters of Hebrew not just Ayn, but Tsady and Qof and so on ! Maha is palestinian too ! she will help ❤
+K Khalid Yemen was under Ethiopia for 70 years, during king Kaleb's time. There are similarties between Geez and Sabian alphabet. Which alphabet came first is still a controversy.
yeqolotemari ethiopia invaded Yemen in 6th century AD but the language transfered to the abyssinians during the ancient Sheba kingdoms about 1800 BCE because of immigration of some Yemenite to Ethiopia and mingled with the people there and thet adopted the new language and that language developed to brcome ge'ez , but before that the abyssinians didn't speak any semetic language.
Thank you very much for this amazing, amusing video! The 'ayin letter was driving me crazy for my Arabic and also classic Hebrew, cause I just didn't know exactly how to articulate it! Really useful! :D
This is really helpful-I’m just starting to learn the language and this was the first sound I encountered that felt really unfamiliar to me. Appreciate the tips!
This was very helpful for me learning Hebrew. Today, ayn is fading away in Hebrew. But original archaic pronunciation is glottal like in Arabic. I was told that native Arabic speakers have a beautiful pronunciation speaking Hebrew exactly because of the proper ayn.
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH MAHAAAAA YOU ARE A WONDERFUL TEACHER I'LL BECOME AN ENGLISH TEACHER IN 2 MORE YEARS ISA! YOUR METHODOLOGY IS REALLY HELPFUL I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THIS VIDEO FOR 3 WEEKS, AND NOW FINALLY I THINK I CAN DO THE SOUND 3AYN. SHOKRAN MOOOOT YA MAHA!!!!
Shukran!!! I learn Arabic to communicate with family of my morroccan boyfriend, and only this sound drives me crazy, although Arabic is not so difficult at all. You are amazing teacher :)
lol... Uvula: juuuuuuuu: vju la... This 'a:yn' sound is quite easy now. Like most of the Arabic letters we don't normally use in German or English (or my native Swedish), when we relate these to certain activities, it becomes second nature (eg. I learnt this sound by relating it to yawning. I tend to make this sound, so it works for me, lol). Others might find they do other things with their throats and end up making this sound (like that sound most of us make when we're about to vomit). This might sound stupid (to some) but, seriously, it worked for me and another friend of mine, who is REALLY bad at pronouncing foreign languages that aren't close to his own... Another example is what I call the 'foggy h-sound' (ح) - kind of sounds like you're fogging up a mirror - well, that's how it sounds when I fog up a mirror, lol. I remember really embarrassing myself on a crowded train once not that long ago when I said to one friend, who was sitting next to me, that I was meeting up with another friend (a Lebanese guy I have been friends with for years now) to work on my 'throat muscles' (he's helping me with my Arabic pronunciation). Everyone who heard me (umm, yep, that was everybody) started laughing... I suppose you had to be there, haha... Thank God, it was my stop! I have another Lebanese friend, who, when I first started learning Arabic, told me to stick my finger in my throat. She then told me to (THIS TIME) take off my training wheels and try and reproduce the same sound without my finger in my throat, hahaha... I have some strange friends... Or maybe I'm the strange one... Anyway, Maha, I actually just wanted to say that you explained this sound perfectly! 'CHOKING' is a perfect way of describing this. You know, it would have saved me quite some time if someone had just said this to me at the very beginning, when I first came across this letter... It takes SOOO many people ages to even properly describe what this sound is, let alone how to pronounce it - and causes even more confusion with the explanation in the process, so, BRAVO! Sehr gut gemacht! :)
It's actually called the pharynx, not the uvula. :) This sound is made below the uvula, by retracting the tongue-root towards the back of the throat (the pharyngeal cavity). But Maha demonstrates it very well! :D
@@ibrahimsued4906 She isn't using the uvula. If you listen to a uvular fricative (french "r") or a uvular approximate (lazy french "r"), you will see that it's very different.
Fantastic, you are powerful and beautiful (inside and outside) and serious. It is an awesome contribution to the world what you do. My only critique, as a student is that you not always put arabic subtitles, just transliteration. And in the end what is needed is to format our mind as learners in arabic letters. Both should be put. The best of the best cultural warrior!
Great Video! It finally made this letter click for me. It's like the doctor having you "say ahh" and then sticking the tongue depressor down your throat.- Choking and talking at the same time!
The hardest thing about arabic is these guttural sounds... This letters, along with Saad and Daad: how do you pronounce them in the middle or at the end. Ayn on it's own is one thing but it the middle it's very unclear.
That's why I like Pimsleur. I just imitate native speakers enough and come close, but close is eventually fine -- but I'm sure adding in some more formal phonetics instruction like this will help too. As people who know Calculus (not me) might say: My choking myself will eventually approximate Arabic at the limit.
I have just discovered your channel this morning, I am blessed! I have been struggling to memorize and recite Al-Fatihah from the Quran, and your video has helped me tremendously. After watching, I regained some confidence to keep trying and using your tips I was finally able to move past the tricky pronunciation that I have been stuck on. I truly appreciate your informative videos. Thank you for taking the time and energy to help people in this way, it is very important to me to be able to pronounce the words correctly. I look forward to viewing more from your channel 😊
It's curious. The word غني in arabic means Rich and the word עני in hebrew means Poor. They sound similar and spell the same just with different alphabets but the meaning is opposite in both lenguages.
@@akd7576 the Hebrew modern pronounciation is heavily influenced by german... Ancient Hebrew sounds just like arabic The yemenite dialect should have been adopted instead of the mixture between sephardic and ashkenazi...
Thank's Maha! This is a very helpful video. I like to practice my A'in at home, it's so anoying to my mother and sister hahaha. Just a question, I'm not sure about the diference beetwen ع and غ. The second one with a point up it's a bit stronger right? perhaps you may show us the difference beewet this letters with the words عين and غني for example or how many others you know
The letters ع and غ , the one with the dot is غ(Ghayn), it represents a velar fricative, in the same point of articulation as G sound, so thus it is not as far down the throat as the ع(Ayn), which is pharyngeal. In fact غ is one of the six recent letters added to Arabic alphabet, so it like the five others all have one extra dot added to the original letter.
Hello maha...I actually viewed most of your Arabic lesson and it really helped me...am a Filipino working here in Qatar..and learning with u is so much fun..Shukran gazilan...
When I start with a normal a-sound and then try to restrict the muscle in my throat my voice fades into almost a whisper and I can't finish with that strength that makes the ع sounds so cool. Does anyone else have this problem?
For those interested in the more technical explanation for this phoneme, I'll try to explain. It actually varies depending on the region, but the most extended description is that it's a voiced pharyngeal fricative. That means it's the voiced counterpart of the ح sound. How do you make a pharyngeal sound, you might me asking? Well, you have to push the root of your tongue against your larynx. That's what Maha's advice "choke yourself" is for! :D Now, the bad news. Currently the 'ayn sound is more accurately described as a creaky-voiced epiglottal aproximant, but as I said, it changes from region to region and since the contrast is not phonemic in arabic nor in any other known language, it's totally OK to pronounce it as a pharyngeal, plus some native arabic speakers do pronounce it this way.
Omg you're funny! "Let's do a technique without choking yourself..." Lmao. BUT the video was also very effective! I think I kinda get it! (Will have to ask my boyfriend if he agrees, lol 😂)
I think letter ع is one of the most difficult letters to pronounce. I remember teaching my brother when he was in first grade the alphabet, and he memorized them all except ع ^_^
Same here. It's 5am here and I've been trying to beat the more difficult Arabic letters into me for the past two hours or so and I just had to pause the video and laugh for a bit....then proceed to take the advice and choke myself. Haha
Hi! That is the best explanation of ع I have ever heard! Congratulations! I'm Brazilian and to us brazilians is very hard to understand the sound of some Arabic characters, so I would love if you make a video explaining the differences between د، ز، ص، ض، ط، ظ and غ. These letters are almost impossible to us to understand the differences. Thank you very much!
Hi..as for letter (ص) it is very similar to letter (s) in English word (summer)..for letter (ط) it is like the t letter in (touch ) ..and for letter (غ) it's pronounced. Same as letter (r) in French language
i think a lot of people can and have made this sound, its just really hard to get used to using it in regular speech rather than just screaming or joking around or whatever.
Thank you Maha! I'm a little bit confused when you mention the uvula when pronouncing "ع". Does the uvula trill when pronouncing it? Or you just mention it by pointing out where the air flows through the throat. I guess the uvula is not trilling when pronouncing "ع", right? If anyone else understands my question, feel free to answer. :)
Nice introduction to 3ain! Small note however, the phone is not made with uvula, which is the small droplet shaped thing hanging at back of your throat. Arabic has uvular consonants like ق which is made by rising your tongue towards the uvula. ع-sound is depending dialect either pharyngeal or epiglottal fricative where the root of the tongue or the epiglottis is pressed against the pharynx.
I learned to pronounce this letter trying to drag the A sound inward toward my throat, let's remember the letters J and G are uttered from the throat, so I started to take the A sound toward my throat, and I also tried to pronounce the vowel A normally and later immediately in the back of my mouth like a gutural sound to be sure that i am making the sound from my throat and now i can make the 3 sound easily. My lebanese friend says i do it well.
I love this just found this last night & I can make it or at least something similar to it (practice is life, just randomly said aaa3 all day and friends were like wat). I can't trill r to save my lifee tho :( even tho I think I'm relatively good at picking up how to say things. Any tips? Or if you have a video on it then i'll look after commenting this ;) (Also 'ayn is pharyngeal not uvular)
Thanks a lot, but one question : in a word like المعذرة, I hear the ayn in the middle pronounced like an alif, is it because of the preceding and following letters that make it softer?
