Examples and Grammar
 

yawm- (one) day. This word is made out of three letters, yâ', wâw and mîm. But as you see in the Latin transliteration, there is a forth letter coming through: 'a'. This is the short a, unlike the long a, as in 'alif above. In Arabic this is the source of frustration for beginners: Short vowels are not written. That is, there is a way of writing the three short vowels, is small curls above or under the letter it follows, but beyond sometimes religious works, and school books, these are omitted.
The 3 short vowels are: a, u, i. And that's it!
There is a system to how these vowels are used,- Arabic is a very organised language. For now, just settle with learning the sound of each word. That is the best.

'ummî- my mother. With this word, you should note the following: The double letters of mîm, are not written each by themselves, they are written as one letter. There is a curl to indicate just this, but at this beginner's level, the same rule applies as for the short vowels: Learn the sound for each word.
Note that the suffix of a yâ', is the straightforward way of indicating "mine", "my", or "of "me". When putting yâ' at the very end of a word, pronouncing and writing it as one word, you can't go wrong.

wathaba- to jump, to leap This is a verb. Note that it really means "he jumped, he leaped", as masculin singular past, is presented as the core form for a verb.
Arabic verbs are declined stricly according to 1., 2., or 3. person, gender, and singular, dualis (!!!) and plural. But the good news is: Only two tenses: Perfect (past) and Imperfect (now), while Futurum is simply made by adding the prefix "sa-" to the Imperfect form.

tâba- to repent. Surprise, surprise! One letter becomes another one!!
One of the more time consuming challenges students of Arabic will have to face, is getting a hold on the many irregularities that occur when one of these 3 letters are found in a verb:

'alif, wâw and/or yâ'