ArAlpha

Learn the Arabic alphabet with ArAlpha

Lessons

First, you choose a transcription's system.

Then you start a lesson.

Every character is displayed, along with its roman transcription.

Initial, middle, and final forms are presented, e.g. here is the middle form of the H.

Questions

When the lesson is known, a little test can be passed composed of a set of ten questions. Every question consists of choosing the correct Roman transcription of the Arabic character randomly selected, by clicking on one of the proposed answers in the lower half of the screen.

Here is another kind of question, where you are asked to find the right Arabic character.

At the end of the test, a screen summarizes your answers. The size of each bar is proportional to the time it takes you to give the correct solution, so that you can immediately spot what caused you troubles. Below, are displayed the total time, the number of good answers at your first try, and a global evaluation in red, letting you estimate if you performed poorly (less than 50), well (50 to 75), or very well (above 75).

Words

The software has 11 lessons and 22 tests. It covers the whole Arabic alphabet and 500 words.

Revisions

• August 2005
  A new transliteration system has been added, following the suggestions of Mike W. Now, there is a text file, named "aralph00.dat", where you can specify the roman characters associated with the Arabic characters.

Computer requirements

• ArAlpha is a 16-bit Windows application.
  It runs on a PC under Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP.
  I have not tested it on other versions of Windows, but there should be no problem.
• There is no version for Macintosh, or Linux, but maybe with a Windows emulator, it'll work.
• The total amount of required disk space is about 1000 kilo bytes, i.e. 1 MB.
• ArAlpha was originally designed for video screens having 640*480 pixels and 256 colors. Because the application's window can be resized, it supports well other screen resolutions.
• There is no sound.
• ArAlpha does need an Arabic font file. It has its own font file.
• ArAlpha does not use Windows' registry at all.

Download

   Download the latest version of ArAlpha in a zip file (~ 280 KB).

   Download the latest version of ArAlpha in an exe auto-install file (~ 350 KB).

Installation

    Create a directory where you want to put ArAlpha, and use Winzip, or another unzip tool to extract the files of the package.

    The files composing ArAlpha are:

       ARALPHA.EXE     Main windows program

       ARALPHA.F00     Font file (special format)

       ARALPH00.DAT    A customizable transliteration table of the alphabet
        
       ARALPH01.DAT ARALPH02.DAT, ARALPH03.DAT, ARALPH04.DAT, ARALPH05.DAT,
       ARALPH06.DAT ARALPH07.DAT, ARALPH08.DAT, ARALPH09.DAT, ARALPH10.DAT,
       ARALPH11.DAT    Files containing list of words

       ARALPH01.PCX ARALPH02.PCX, ..., ARALPH16.PCX Sixteen little pictures

    Launch aralp11.exe, and the installation will proceed. An entry will be added in the start menu.

Uninstallation

1. Delete the files listed above.
2. Delete also the file ARALPHA.INI in the Windows directory. This file is automatically created by the software when it is run for the first time. It contains the size of the windows, the colors, the language English or French, etc. N.B. It is not a big deal if you forget to delete that file, because it is very small, and it contains only some data, no program.
3. That's all. Aralpha does not touch the registry, does not create hidden files, viruses, adware, or any other unpleasant things.

1. Go to Windows Panel, and select the "add/remove software" module.
2. Select Aralpha in the list.