Moving on to our twenty fifth letter of the Arabic alphabet (ن), we will look at various words beginning with (ن) along with more culture/language related facts.

Let’s begin with looking at your basic forms of the letter ن.

Initial نـ‎, as in the word “نافِذة” meaning “window”.

Medial ـنـ‎ ‍, as in the word “ابْنة” meaning “daughter”.

Final ـن‎, as in the word “حَزين” meaning “sad”.

Before looking at the following words and phrases, can you think of words beginning with ن?

نَعَم : yes  هَل مَعك جَواز سَفَرك؟  Do you have your passport with you?

.نَعَم، إنه في حَقيبتي   Yes, it’s in my bag.

نَحْن: we  .نَحنُ في وَضْع صَعْب  We are in a difficult situation.

نَصّ: text  هل يُمكنك قِراءة هذا النَص العَربي؟  Can you read this Arabic text?

نادٍ: club  .أودُ الإنضمام إلى ناد رياضي  I would like to join a sports club.

نار: fire/flame   كيفَ يُمكنني اشعال النَّار؟   How can I make a fire?

Note: When referring to something on fire, in Arabic, we use “حَريق“, and when referring to the action of firing a weapon as in “to fire”, we say “إطلاق النار”.

.كان هُناك حَريق في مَنزِل جارنا الليلة الماضية  There was a fire in our neighbor’s house last night.

نَهْر: river  .نَهْر النيل هو أطول نَهْر في إفريقيا  The Nile river is the longest river in Africa.

What facts do you know about نَهْر النيل?

Here are two videos about نهر النيل. The first is from الجزيرة Al Jazeera giving some basic facts about نهر النيل in Modern Standard Arabic. Listen to the اللَهجة المَصرية Egyptian dialect in the second video about the الشَّباب المَصري Egyptian youth coming together لِتَنْظيف to clean up the Nile for الأجيال المُقبلة future generations.

كل ما تريد معرفته عن نهر النيل

حملات شبابية بالتعاون مع وزارة البيئة لتنظيف نهر النيل

More words beginning with ن:

ناس: people  .هُناك الكَثير مِن الناس ينتظرون في الطابور  There are too many people waiting in line.

نامَ: to sleep  .نمتُ على الأرض  I slept on the floor.

نَجَحَ: to succeed  .كانَت هذه مُهِمة ناجِحة  That was a successful mission.

نَجْمة: star .هُناك العَديد مِن النجوم في السَماء الليلة  There are many stars in the sky tonight.

نَسى: to forget  .نسيتُ مَفاتيحي والباب مُقفل  I forgot my keys and the door is locked.

نَّصيحة: advice .نَصيحتي هي التَوقف عَن تَناول الوجبات السَّريعة

My advice is to stop eating junk food.

نَوْع: type/kind  ما نوع السيارة التي تَرغب في شِرائها؟  What type of car would you like to buy?

نادِراً: rarely .نادراً ما ينتبه في الصَّف  He rarely pays a attention in class.

ناقَشَ: to discuss  .في فَصْل اليوم، ناقشنا حقوق المَرأة

In today’s class, we discussed women’s rights.

نِساء: women  عفواً، أين حَمام النِساء؟  Excuse me, where is the women’s bathroom?

Note: Remember that the plural form نِساء “women” looks nothing like the singular form being اِمْرأة “woman”.

نَشاط: activity ما نَوع الأنشطة التي تُحب القِيام بها؟  What kind of activities do you like to do?

نَظَرَ: to look     نَفْسُك: yourself

.أنظر إلى نَفسك في المرآة  Look at yourself in the mirror.

نِّهاية : end  ما رأيك في نهاية الفيلم؟  What did you think of the movie’s ending?

نَبات: plants    نُمُوّ: to grow

.تَحتاج النبَاتات إلى ضوء الشَّمس لتنمو   Plants need sunlight to grow.

The word “vegetarian” in Arabic is translated as نَباتي coming from the word نَبات meaning plants. Yet, the word “vegan” doesn’t have a known translation in Arabic since the word “vegan” itself is simply a recent semantic derivative of vegetarian. There is a considerable difference between both diets and a vegan would not be able to order a vegetarian dish if it contains any animal products. Therefore, a vegan could use the word for vegetarian نباتي  and add “I don’t eat animal products such as eggs and dairy.” .لا آكلُ منتوجات الحيوانات مِثل بَيض وألبان”.

Here is video of a Syrian Vegan named ابراهيم رمزات Ibrahim Ramzat. He begins the video by acting like what some people think being vegan is all about (very funny) 😁. He then talks about his روتين اليَومي daily routine and what he eats in a day. He speaks in Levantine Arabic (Syrian dialect). There are English subtitles to help you follow along. If you’re interested in more videos about veganism in Arabic, or just about أسلوب حياة lifestyle in general, I would check out his channel. 😎

روتيني اليومي في الاكل النباتي 💚 My Vegan Daily Routine

Till next week, happy Arabic learning! 😊