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How to Order and Give Instructions in Arabic Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Feb 8, 2018
To give orders or instructions in Arabic, full verbs in the imperative form are used. In Arabic, ‘order’ is أَمْر and its plural is أَوَامِر and ‘instruction’ is تَوْجِيْه and its plural is تَوْجِيْهَات. A full verb is the verb that indicates an action, as لَعِبَ ‘to play’, كَتَبَ ‘to write’, وَعَدَ ‘to promise’ and…
Basic Sentence Structure in Arabic (III) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Dec 1, 2017
Previously, you were acquainted with the types of sentences in Arabic. Based on the part of speech of the word with which it starts, the sentence is verbal فِعْلِيَّة or nominal اِسْمِيَّة. The verbal must at least have a verb فِعْل and a subject فَاعِل to be meaningful. In this post, you learn the common…
Modern Religious Ideologies in the Arab World Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Nov 23, 2017
Most Arabs define being an Arab as one who speaks Arabic and views the history of Arabs as an integral part of his/her cultural identity. Arabs are predominantly Muslims, but they have different religious ideologies. This difference is primarily due to power struggle which led during the early days of Islam to rebellious movements. This…
Arabic Parsing vs. Diacritics Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Nov 16, 2017
In acquiring Arabic, it is exceedingly essential that articulation rules, namely diacritics الحَرَكَات, be known from the outset. Knowing how to pronounce sounds and words intelligibly leads to better learning and communication. The ability to pronounce words effortlessly speeds up vocabulary acquisition and retention. Likewise, proper pronunciation leads to more comprehensible speech. This post is…
Basic Sentence Structure in Arabic (II) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Nov 9, 2017
In an earlier post, I focused on one type of Arabic sentences, the verbal sentence الجُمْلَة الفِعْلِيَّة. As its name suggests, it is the sentence that starts with a verb فِعْل. In like manner, the nominal sentence الجُمْلَة الإِسْمِيَّة, our focus in this post, is the sentence that starts with a noun اِسْم. This type…
5 Common Prepositions in Arabic Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Nov 3, 2017
In learning another language, one good thing about prepositions is that they are limited, i.e. belong to a closed class of words, just like pronouns. Besides, in the case of Arabic, they are simple when conjugating them with pronouns (i.e. appending pronouns to them). There are seventeen prepositions in Arabic. Here, we look at the…
Genitive Construction in Arabic Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Oct 30, 2017
Genitive Construction (GC), known as iDHaafah إِضَافَة, is usually encountered at the early stages of learning Arabic. The main reason for this is that a genitive construction, which is a phrasal (i.e. more than one word) structure can be used as a faa‘il فَاعِل ‘subject’ or a maf‘uul مَفْعُول ‘object’ of the sentence in lieu…