Archive for 'Vocabulary'
How to Make Comparisons in Arabic Posted by aziza on Aug 26, 2009
Comparison is between two in terms of a certain quality usually expressed by an adjective, e.g. taller than. When we compare between 2 people or things in Arabic, we typically use the form (أفعل) followed by the preposition (من), e.g. “taller than“ is (أطول من) محمد أكبر من أحمد ولكن أحمد أطول منه. “Mohammed is…
Arabic Vocabulary on Outer Space Posted by aziza on Aug 13, 2009
In this post, I compile a list of vocabulary items related to the topic of space. It is one of the topics that often appear in newspapers, yet not many books of Arabic as a foreign language deal with it. Below is a list of words that are relevant to the topic of space: Space…
Environmental Vocabulary in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jul 2, 2009
Let’s look at some Arabic vocabulary dealing with nature and the environment. أحب الطبيعة في مدينتي. “I like nature in my city.” يحب أن نحافظ على البيئة. “We must conserve the environment.” كل المخلوقات الحية تحتاج إلى الماء والهواء والطاقة. “All living creatures need water, air and energy.” Nature الطبيعة Environment البيئة Life الحياة Water…
Word formation in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 22, 2009
Morphology or word formation is a very powerful concept in Arabic, and if a learner knows the word-formation rules in Arabic, he/she will find it very helpful in their future learning. Arabic is a highly derivational language, i.e. you can make words from the same root by using different forms. In English, for example, we…
Ordinal numbers in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 18, 2009
Ordinal numbers, like first, second, third, etc. are used to mention the rank or order of things. They are derived from the numbers, and in most of the instances follow the pattern of (فاعل), e.g. ثالث, رابع, خامس, etc. When they are used as adjectives, they must agree with the noun they modify in gender and…
Talking about the weather in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 7, 2009
The weather can be a very interesting topic in some countries, especially when it is unpredictable. In the Middle East, the weather is mostly as predicted. We do not usually have the four seasons in one day, as is the case in the UK for example. So, people do not talk about the weather as…
Numbers in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 21, 2009
Arabic Numbers (الأعداد) are given in the table below. When read on their own, they are usually in the feminine form, and the teens always end in the work (عشر), as for complex numbers in Arabic, they follow the system (units and tens), e.g. twenty one is (واحد وعشرون), literally like (one and twenty)…