The letter alif is the first letter in the Arabic alphabet.
It is very easy to write, just as a thin long vertical line.
It is similar to the letter A in English.
If the word begins with the letter alif, it does not connect to the letters that follow.
The letter alif is connected to the letters before and does not connect to the letters after.
Alif is a long vowel when in the middle and at the endof words.
In the beginning alif always comes with hamza (so called glottal stop studied later) that makes alif a short vowel, it stops the long sound of alif.
Look at the word in the picture. The word means a doorand it is pronounced as baab. Here alif sounds as a longvowel aa. Also when in the middle and at the end of words.
In the beginning alif always comes with hamza (so called glottal stop studied later) that makes alif a short vowel, it stops the long sound of alif.