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Arabic grammar terminology Posted by aziza on Aug 25, 2010
The post presents more grammatical terms in Arabic and their English equivalents as a continuation to my previous post. المَصْدَر Infinitive/ Verbal Noun اِسْمُ الفاعِل Active Participle اسمُ المفعول Passive Participle الفِعْلُ المَاضِي The Perfect Tense. الفِعْلُ المُضَارِع The Imperfect Tense الفِعلُ المبنِي للمجهول Passive verb فِعْل أَمر Imperative (Nominative) الفاعِل Subject (Accusative) المفعُول بِهِ…
Arabic grammar terminology – case marking Posted by aziza on Aug 21, 2010
In this post, I present a brief table with some terms related to the case marking system; the Arabic and English terms are presented along with a brief explanation of the use of the cases. The first table deals with the cases for nouns and adjectives. With nouns serving as subjects of verbal sentences or…
Expressing prohibition – don’t Posted by aziza on Aug 19, 2010
To express prohibition (النهي) in Arabic, we use the particle (لا) with the present tense form of the verb conjugated with you. In this post, I explain how to make orders with (أنتَ) you singular masculine. Consider the following examples: أنتَ تفتح. You open. لا تفتحْ. Don’t open! أنتَ تستمع. You listen. لا تستمعْ. Don’t…
What does the word homeland mean? Posted by aziza on Aug 17, 2010
What does the word homeland mean? is the title of a beautiful song by Mohammed Fouad (محمد فؤاد), a very famous singer in Egypt. The song is originally taken from a film. It is a very emotional song about what homeland may mean to some. Surely, a homeland means something different for each and every…
Almanqoos (Part 2) Posted by aziza on Aug 12, 2010
In the previous post, I introduced (الاسم المنقوص) which is a noun that ends in (ي) preceded by a letter with kasra (ـِ). It is special in its form, as the final (ي) is deleted when the noun is indefinite. The case marking (الإعراب) of this category of nouns is special as well. The final…
Almanqoos Posted by aziza on Aug 6, 2010
(الاسم المنقوص) is a noun that ends in a long i: (ي) with a kasra (ـِ) on the letter before last, e.g. (النادي) “club”, (القاضي) “judge”, etc. These nouns are very tricky to master in Arabic because they are often confused with other nouns and adjectives that end in (ي), e.g. nisba adjectives for nationalities…
How to negate nominal sentences in Arabic Posted by aziza on Aug 3, 2010
Nominal sentences in Arabic are negated using (ليس). It should be noted that (ليس) should be conjugated according to the subject of the sentence. The following table shows the conjugation of (ليس) with different pronouns. لستُ أنا لستَ أنتَ لستِ أنتِ ليس هو ليست هي لسنا نحن لستما أنتما ليسا هما m ليستا هما f…