Tag Archives: Grammar
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…
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…
Arabic Irregular Verbs: Hollow Verbs (Part 1) Posted by aziza on Feb 3, 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 present tense, the medial vowel can change, as it becomes like its root. The three examples below give examples of three verbs that behave differently…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 4): Conjugating Verbs that Begin with a Vowel Posted by aziza on Jan 30, 2010
This post deals with conjugation of verbs that begin with the vowel (و) – (الفعل المثال الواوي), e.g. (وصل) ‘arrived, (وعد) ‘promised, etc. In the present tense, which usually involves the use of prefixes, the first vowel of the verb is substituted by the prefix, i.e. the vowel which occurs in the beginning of the…
Irregular Verbs in Arabic (Part 3): Verbs Beginning with Vowels Posted by aziza on Jan 27, 2010
This post deals with verbs that begin with a vowel (الفعل المثال), e.g. (وصل) ‘arrived, (وعد) ‘promised, (يئس) ‘gave up hope’, etc. In the past tense, they take the same endings like any other verb, this is mainly because past tense verbs are conjugated with suffixes, or endings. Therefore, the beginning of the verbs, i.e…