In Arabic, there is a limited number of words that are made up of one letter only, for example (و) ‘and’, and (ف) which is used to link sentences explaining each other. In addition, there are some prepositions, e.g. (ب) ‘with/by’, (ك) ‘as/like’, (ل) ‘to/for’.

What we should note about all these is that they cannot stand alone as separate words. Instead, they must join the words the follow them. For example,

محمد وأحمد صديقان.

“Mohammed and Ahmed are friends.”

سافرنا بالطائرة.

“We traveled by plane.”

هو شجاع كالأسد.

“He is as brave as a lion.”

It should also be noted that when we use (ل) before a noun that begins with (ال), we must delete the (ا) at the beginning of the definite article.

ذهب الولد للبيت. (= ل + البيت)

“The boy went home.”

توجهت للجامعة. (= ل + الجامعة)

“I headed to the university.”