Archive for June, 2009
Arabic Verb forms VI-X Posted by aziza on Jun 29, 2009
In this post, I continue to explain the verb forms. You can read about forms I-V here. I should have noted earlier that there are many functions for each form, and the one or ones I list in relation to a given form may be the most common use, but not the only one. …
Arabic Verb forms I-V Posted by aziza on Jun 28, 2009
In Arabic, there are 10 verb forms that can be formed from each root. The root usually consists of 3 letters, and verb forms are made up of different patterns involving a given root. Some forms are used for a given root while others are not. Verb forms are usually indicated by roman numerals in…
Active participle in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 23, 2009
The active participle (اسم الفاعِل) is a very common and a very important form in Arabic. It is used a lot in both Standard and Colloquial Arabic, but it is used more extensively in colloquial dialects. It refers to the doer of the action of to one involved in the action, e.g. the active participle…
Word formation in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 22, 2009
Morphology or word formation is a very powerful concept in Arabic, and if a learner knows the word-formation rules in Arabic, he/she will find it very helpful in their future learning. Arabic is a highly derivational language, i.e. you can make words from the same root by using different forms. In English, for example, we…
Ordinal numbers in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 18, 2009
Ordinal numbers, like first, second, third, etc. are used to mention the rank or order of things. They are derived from the numbers, and in most of the instances follow the pattern of (فاعل), e.g. ثالث, رابع, خامس, etc. When they are used as adjectives, they must agree with the noun they modify in gender and…
Question words in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 12, 2009
In Modern Standard Arabic, questions begin with question words. However, in some colloquial dialects like Egyptian, question words often appear at the end of the sentence, e.g. what is your name? in MSA (ما اسمك؟), and in ECA (اسمك إيه؟). It is interesting to note also that question words differ from standard and colloquial and…
Egyptian Food: Koshary Posted by aziza on Jun 11, 2009
Have you ever tried koshary (كشري)? It is a traditional Egyptian meal that is usually consumed for lunch. It is very easy to prepare, but takes a long time to do because it contains different ingredients. However, it is very popular, especially that all the ingredients do not cost much, and there are lots of…