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Tag Archives: feminine

Basic Arabic: The Noun and Its Forms Posted by on Sep 27, 2018

A word in Arabic can be a noun اِسْم, a verb فِعْل, or a particle حَرْف. The Noun الاِسْم al-ism stands for something that can be concrete or abstract. It can be indefinite or definite; singular, dual, or plural; masculine or feminine. In a sentence, it functions as a subject (of verbal and nominal sentences)…

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The Gender of Arabic Nouns (2): Vocabulary and Examples Posted by on Jul 19, 2018

In series one of this post, it was pointed out that the gender الجِنْس of noun in Arabic is not as straightforward as often thought of. You learned about different types of masculine المُذَكَّر and feminine المُؤَنَّث nouns as well as the feminine markers عَلَامَات التَّأْنِيْث. Today, you will learn about some irregularities of masculine…

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The Gender of Arabic Nouns (1) Posted by on Jul 17, 2018

The gender الجِنْس of noun الاِسْم in Arabic is either masculine مُذَكَّر or feminine مُؤَّنَّث. The masculine المُذَكَّر is the basic form; therefore, it does not require a marker عَلاَمَة. The feminine المُؤَنَّث is derived from the masculine; it requires a feminine marker عَلَامَة تَأنِيْث. There are two types of masculine: real masculine and unreal…

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Forms of Nominal and Verbal Plurals in Arabic Posted by on May 29, 2018

As explained in an earlier post, nouns الأَسْمَاء and verbs الأَفْعَال have three forms: singular مُفْرَد, dual مُثَنَّى, or plural جَمْع. Unlike the formation of dual noun forms, plural noun forms are a bit more complex because they constitute three types: sound masculine plural جَمْع مُذَكَّر سَالِم, sound feminine plural جَمْع مُؤَنَّث سَالِم, and broken…

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Practice feminine plurals Posted by on Nov 6, 2012

Feminine Plurals (جمع المؤنث السالم) are formed by replacing the suffix (ة) at the end of feminine words by the suffix (ات) First, do you remember feminine plural forms? They   (fem. Pl.) هن Them   (fem. Pl.) ـهن Their   (fem. Pl.) ـهن You   – subject pronoun (fem. Pl.) أنتن Your   (fem…

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More notes on gender Posted by on Sep 17, 2011

To add to my previous remarks about masculine and feminine, there are some words that refer to the same thing, and they have different gender, e.g. there are two words for window in Arabic: (نافذة) which is feminine and (شباك) which is masculine, likewise there are two words for life/living (حياة) which is feminine and…

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Some notes on gender Posted by on Sep 15, 2011

Learning the gender of words in Arabic is often tricky to non-native speakers, as there is not an easy rule that tells us whether a word is masculine or feminine, and many rules have exceptions. One of the most useful rules is that words that end in ta’ marbouta (ة) are feminine, e.g.  سميرة,  أميرة…

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