Archive for 'Grammar'
Listening practice: Covid-19 benefits Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Apr 10, 2020
This post is based on a very short video clip that discusses the on-going global outbreak الانتشار العالمي of Coronavirus and who could benefit from يستفيد من the current situation الوضع الحالي that compelled people أجبر الناس to stay home على البقاء في المنزل ? As the lady in the video speaks in plain Egyptian…
Relative pronouns in Spoken Arabic, 2 Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Mar 6, 2020
In the first part of this post, we started discussing s subtle aspect of Arabic grammar, and that is that of relative pronouns ضمائر الوصل. To recap, a relative pronoun is a pronoun that follows a noun in order to elaborate on it and add extra information about it. In the second part of the…
Relative pronouns in Spoken Arabic, 1 Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Feb 28, 2020
In this post, we’re going to look at a subtle aspect of Arabic grammar that can be confusing for some learners of Spoken Arabic, even advanced ones. This aspect is that of relative pronouns ضمائر الوصل A relative pronoun is a pronoun that follows a noun in order to add extra information about it, in…
Case marking and agreement in verbal sentences Posted by aziza on Jul 28, 2019
In this post, we learn how to case mark verbal sentences. The verbal sentence (الجملة الفعلية) is a sentence that begins by a verb. The verbal sentence has two main components: the verb (الفعل), the subject (الفاعل), especially if the verb is non-transitive. If the verb is transitive, there is also a third element, i.e. …
Case marking of nominal sentences Posted by aziza on Jun 29, 2019
Case marking (الإعراب) is a very important grammatical concept in Arabic. In this post, we learn how to case mark nominal sentences. The nominal sentence (الجملة الإسمية) is a sentence that begins by a noun or a pronoun. The nominal sentence has two main components: the subject (المبتدأ) and the predicate (الخبر). Both parts of…
Is There Only One Way to Use “No/Laa” in Arabic? Posted by yasmine on May 1, 2019
“Laa” لا is probably one of the first words you learned in Arabic. It’s easy to say (no difficult sounds) and doesn’t change much in Arabic dialects. In this post, we’ll look at the few different grammatical functions of لا. First, there are two different ways of writing “no” in Arabic: Both are equally correct…
Rules for writing final hamza Posted by aziza on Apr 25, 2019
In this post, I write about the rules for writing hamza (ء) in Arabic at the end of the word. Just like medial hamza, the writing of final hamza depends on how it is vowelled and how the letters before it are vowelled. In this post, I will describe the most important rules. Final Hamza…