... able at least to read a menu or a street sign, to understand labels in a supermarket, or to pay their Arab hosts the simple courtesy of being able to read and write the names ... waaw and yoo' also stand for the consonants w and y. How can you tell when a waaw stands for w and when it stands for a longuu, and when ayaa' stands for y and when ... out, only too late. that the attempt to assimilate both grammar and the alphabet simultaneously is simply too taxing. Genuine mastery of the alphabet ought to be a prerequisite to learning...