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Basic Arabic: The Noun and Its Forms Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Sep 27, 2018
A word in Arabic can be a noun اِسْم, a verb فِعْل, or a particle حَرْف. The Noun الاِسْم al-ism stands for something that can be concrete or abstract. It can be indefinite or definite; singular, dual, or plural; masculine or feminine. In a sentence, it functions as a subject (of verbal and nominal sentences)…
Basic Arabic: Diacritical Marks Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Sep 25, 2018
In an earlier post, you learned that short vowels الحَرَكَات القَصِيْرَة in Arabic are not represented by letters; rather, they are diacritical marks that are placed over or below regular consonant letters. These short vowels are the fatHah الفَتْحَة, the kasrah الكَسْرَة, and the DHammah الضَّمَّة. In addition, there are two other essential marks: the…
Basic Arabic: The Alphabet Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Sep 20, 2018
الأَبْجَدِيَّة العَرَبِيَّة al-abjadiiyah al-‘arabiiyah, i.e. the Arabic Alphabetical System, includes twenty-eight letters. In addition to the alif ا and the alif al-madd آ, they are thirty. Nearly all these letters are consonants. Vowels are two types: long and short. Long vowels are represented by letters, while the short ones are represented by diacritical marks. Each…
Some Insights into Arabic Verb Usage (1) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Sep 11, 2018
Certain rules of Arabic verb conjunction, formation, meaning, and pronunciation are oftentimes overlooked because they are minute and needs a meticulous learner or instructor to discover and/or pay attention to. Knowing these niceties lead to more accurate language use and speedier language learning overall. This post gives a list of rules and illustrations that concern…
Some Common Particles in Arabic (3) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Aug 30, 2018
In the previous two posts, you learned how some Arabic particles are used and what they mean. Given their functions in style, sentence transition, conciseness in speech and written language, and idiomatic usage, another post is yet again dedicated to these important words. Some of these words are called حَرُوف ‘particles’, and others are called…
Some Common Particles in Arabic (2) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Aug 28, 2018
In the previous post, you learned how some Arabic particles are used. This post continues with another set of particles explaining their possible meanings and how they are used. As seen with the first set, the meaning may be determined by the context in which they occur. They are mostly functional words that are not…
Some Common Particles in Arabic (1) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Aug 26, 2018
Words in Arabic are classified into three parts of speech: a noun اِسْم, a verb فِعْل, and a particle حَرْف. Essentially, particles have no meaning by themselves, that is, they must be added to another word or be part of a context. They modify the meaning of other words, help with sentence transition (i.e. style)…