Grammar point: Pronunciation of some difficult Arabic letters
خالد: السّلامٌ عـَلـَيـْكـُم
" Peace be upon you (= Hello)."

The pronunciation of Arabic is quite challenging; there are many sounds that are unfamiliar to English speakers. So we'll actually teach you the pronunciation in two installments. Today, we'll look at one set of unfamiliar sounds, and in lesson 3 we'll look at the rest. The first new sound is the glottal stop. In the Lesson Notes PDF, this one is indicated with an apostrophe. The glottal stop occurs in the word أهلا ('ahlan) for "hello". It is not so much what you hear as what you don't hear - there's a stop before the A, as in the English expression "uh-oh". The sound in the middle of "uh-oh" is a glottal stop.

Next, there's the ´ayn. The ´ayn is a sound that has to come from deep in the throat. In this lesson, we heard the ´ayn in the expression السلام عليكم (assalaam ´alaykum), "Peace be with you". Go to the vocabulary section in the Premium Learning Center and play this expression over and over to familiarize yourself with the sound of ´ayn.

Finally, the khaa. This one should be easy if you already learned German or Dutch. It's basically the same sound as in the name "Bach". In this lesson, it appeared in the name Khalid and also in the expression بخير (biḫayr), "good". Again, we recommend using the Premium Learning Center in order to familiarize yourself with the sound of this letter.

1. The holy Quran encourages Muslims to use the word "God" often when they speak. Because of this, you will find a lot of phrases in Arabic that wouldn't be said as often in English. "alHamdulillah" (thanks to God) is one of these, and if you have Arab friends, you may also hear "insha'allah" (God willing) a lot. Learning a language is more than just learning the vocabulary and the grammar; you also have the local conversation patterns.

Cultural point: Greetings and replies Most of the times people use "السلام عليكم" (assalaam ´alaykum) as it works for any time of the day, with anyone, regardless of the age, cultural & social status, education or otherwise. Its both formal and informal, and always very polite to use. The second most common greeting is "مرحبا" (marhaban), which means Hello, and Hello back, also formal and informal. The third greeting, "أهلا" ('ahlan) is used the same way as "marhaban" and it is just as common. Most of the Arabic greetings are used equally formal and informal, the intonation makes the difference when addressing someone.