The typing exercises in this section are designed to help you begin producing written Arabic. Like the listening exercises, the typing exercises are based on MP3 files of single words pronounced by a native Arabic speaker. After listening to each file, you'll have to "type" the word into the appropriate text box. There are two ways to do this:
Use the "onscreen keypad" available on the Web page. This has some limitations; it can only add new letters to the end of the text in a text box, so you can't insert a character into the middle of your answer.
Use an Arabic keyboard. Windows includes several Arabic keyboards which you can install easily from the "Regional and Languages" Control Panel. If you're serious about learning Arabic, it's best to get started using an Arabic keyboard on your computer as soon as you can. You can use the Windows Onscreen Keyboard utility (in Programs / Accessories / Accessibility) to help you get familiar with the locations of characters on the keyboard.
In order to listen to the sound files, these are the basic requirements:
A modern Web browser (Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer or above, Opera or Safari (other browsers may work too).
The Adobe Flash plugin, or...
...your browser configured to play mp3 files in another media player.
If Flash is installed, you should see a little player control which you can use to play the file. If your browser cannot embed the player, you should see a link labelled "Listen"; clicking on the link should open the mp3 file in whatever audio player is configured to play mp3s on your system.