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Adverbs of Time in MSA and Levantine ظروف الزَّمــان Posted by on Mar 3, 2021 in Grammar

In this post, I thought we’d learn some of the adverbs of time in Arabic  ظروف الزَّمــان. We’ll look at example sentences for context. I have also included an audio recording to help with pronunciation. Before we begin, can you think of any ظَرْفُ زَّمَانِ

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Let’s start with some straightforward ones:

Note: I have added the Levantine equivalent where it happens to differ from MSA. 

today: الْيَوْم   tomorrow: ًغَدا LEV: بُكرة

yesterday: أَمْس LEV: إمبارِح  after: بَعْد

now: الْآَن LEV: هَلَق   tonight: اللَّيـلة  

in the morning: ًصَبَـاحا  LEV: الصُّبح

soon: ًقَرِيْبا    in the evening:  ًمَسَــاء

Now for less familiar ones: 

when: لمّا/حينَ  LEV: لمّا     since/ago: مُنذُ      lately/recently: ًمُؤَخَّرا   

 already: ًسَابِقا   immediately: ًفَوْرَا      later: فِيْمَا بَعْد LEV: بَعدين 

✨Sentence examples: 

.سنَلتَقي قريباً

We will meet soon. 

.وَصَلَت الطائِرة مَسَــاءاً

The plane arrived in the evening. 

.سَلَّمْتُ على صَديقي بَعْد المُحاضَرة

I greeted my friend after the lecture. 

.أحتاجُ تَوقيعك على هَذهِ الإستِمارة فَوْرَاً 

I need your signature on this form immediately. 

هَل لَعَبْتَ كُرة السَّلة حينَ كُنتَ طِفلاً؟

Did you play basketball when you were a child?

.قُلتُ سابِقًا انّي لا أعْرف

I already told you that I don’t know. 

.يبدو أنَك مُؤخراً لا تَشْرَب أي شيء سِوى الكوكاكولا

Lately, it seems you don’t drink anything but Coca-Cola.  

.سَنُناقش هذا المَوضوع فيما بَعْد

We will discuss this topic later.

.لَقد أرسلتُ لكَ إيميل مُنذُ قَليل

I sent you an email a little while ago.

✨If you were to talk about your weekend in Arabic, how many ظروف زَّمــان do you think you could include? Here is an example of what I did on the weekend in Levantine Arabic using ظروف الزَّمــان

يَوم السبت، بَعد الفطور، حَكيت مَع أختي على التلفون. بَعدين طَبَخت. بالليل شُفت فِلم، كان طوله ساعتين. ولما نَعست، ِنمت فَوراً

On Saturday, after breakfast, I talked to my sister on the phone. Later, I cooked. At night, I saw a film that was two hours long. When I got sleepy, I slept immediately. 

Can you point out ظروف الزَّمــان?

I hope you found this post useful in helping you remember your adverbs of time. They will definitely come in handy. Till next week, happy Arabic learning 🙂. 

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About the Author: yasmine

MarHaba! I am half Jordanian of Circassian descent and half American. I have a Master's in Second Language Teaching and I teach Arabic as a foreign language here in the US, both MSA and Levantine Arabic. I hope to help you become more familiar and interested in the Arabic language and culture.


Comments:

  1. Amani Hassan:

    Great post. I wish you could keep it in MSA since the title is about adverbs of time in MSA.
    If you are adding the dialect for exposure then stick to the words that are in common in all dialects or most dialects . Or may be compare dialects in a different post.

  2. yasmine:

    MarHaban Amani,
    Shukran for your comment. It is mentioned in the title that the post includes adverbs of time in both MSA and Levantine Arabic. I focused mostly on MSA and thought just to add a Levantine equivalent. I didn’t see the need to add more dialects since I specified to only adding Levantine.
    Yes, perhaps in another post I can compare different dialects.
    Shukran,
    Yasmine

  3. José:

    the links for the audio files in this message are not working. Thank you for your lessons.