Verbal noun (المصدر) is a very important derivative in Arabic. It is a noun derived from the verb to refer to the action or activity implied in the verb, e.g. drive/driving, eat/eating, work/working, etc. They can be used in similar contexts to the use of verbal nouns in English, e.g.

“I like swimming.”

(أحب السباحة)

“My favorite hobby is reading.”

(هوايتي المفضلة هي القراءة)

Verb forms are extremely important for the formation of verbal nouns. Verbal nouns from form (II – X) follow certain patterns. Yet, there is no rule for deriving verbal nouns from form I. Although there is no rule to tell us how to derive a verbal noun from form I, there are some patterns that are common in this form, e.g.

(فعل), e.g. (عَمَل) “working”, (جَمْع) “collecting”, (زَرْع) “growing”, (فَتْح) “opening”

(فِعالة), e.g. (دراسة) “studying”, (تجارة) “commerce”, (قراءة) “reading”, (كتابة) “writing”

(فعال), e.g. (نجاح) “success”, (ذهاب) “going”

(فَعيل), e.g. (رحيل) “leaving”, (بريق) “glimmering”

(فعولة), e.g. (سهولة) “ease”, (صعوبة) “difficulty”

These are only few of the patterns that can be used to make verbal nouns from form I verbs. Sometimes, there could be more than one verbal noun from the same verb. There are usually some differences between them in meaning or usage or both, e.g. from (صَنَع) which means “to make”, we have 2 verbal nouns (صِناعة) which means “industry” and (صُنْع) which means “making”; and from (زَرَع) which means “to plant”, we have 2 verbal nouns (زِراعة) which means “agriculture” and (زَرْع) which means “planting”.

In the following posts, I will explain the rules for forming verbal nouns from other verb forms.