Archive for 'Grammar'
Using Arabic Prepositions with Question words Posted by aziza on Apr 7, 2010
Prepositions can be used with question words in Arabic just like English to make questions like from where? or where to? Examples of these questions can be found below: من أين أنت؟ “Where are you from?” إلى أين نذهب؟ “Where do we go?” إلى متى الانتظار؟ “Until when do you wait?” Certain prepositions like (من)…
Making Exclamations in Arabic Posted by aziza on Mar 15, 2010
Expressing exclamation in Arabic is done using a special style called (أسلوب التعجب). The particle used in this style is (ما), and it should be followed by the form (أفعل) of the appropriate adjective, e.g. الشارع واسع. “The street is wide.” ما أوسع الشارع! “How wide the street is!” It should be noted that the…
Arabic Adjectives and their Opposites Posted by aziza on Mar 8, 2010
In this post, I present some simple adjectives and their opposites. It is also handy to know the word that can be used to negate adjectives, more or less like the English prefix, un- which is (غير). We use it before an adjective to negate it, e.g. (معروف) means ‘well-known’, while (غير معروف) means ‘un-known…
Spatial relationships in Arabic Posted by aziza on Mar 4, 2010
الشجرة أمام البيت “The tree is in front of the house.” in front of أَمام خلف السيارة كلب. “There is a dog behind the car.” behind خَلف / وَراء حقيبتي بين المقعد والطاولة. “My bag is between the seat and the table.” between بَين مقعدي على يمين مقعدك. “My seat is to the right…
Arabic Weak Verbs in the Present Tense Posted by aziza on Feb 26, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that have a final vowel. They are called weak verbs(الفعل الناقص), e.g. (رَمَى) “threw” and (نما) “grew”, etc. In the present tense, the final vowel is returned to its origin. Consider the examples below. نما رَمَى أنمو أرمي أنا تنمو ترمي أنتَ تنمين ترمين أنتِ ينمو يرمي هو…
Arabic Irregular Verbs: Weak Verbs Posted by aziza on Feb 24, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that have a final vowel. They are called weak verbs(الفعل الناقص), e.g. (رَمَى) “threw” and (نما) “grew”, etc. In the past tense, the final vowel is returned to its origin, and it disappears with some pronouns, i.e. (هي), (هم) and (هما) feminine only for the last one. Consider…
Arabic Irregular Verbs: Hollow Verbs (Part 2) Posted by aziza on Feb 6, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that have a medial vowel (ا). They are called hollow verbs(الفعل الأجوف), e.g. (نام) ‘slept’, (باع) ‘sold’, (قام) ‘got up’, etc. In the past tense, the medial vowel disappears with some pronouns, i.e. first and second person pronouns in addition to the third person feminine plural pronoun. The…