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Temporal adverbs in Arabic (2) ظرف الزمان Posted by on Dec 4, 2020 in Arabic Language, Grammar

Welcome to the second part of this blog post. We’re still focusing on temporal adverbs. You can catch up and read the previous post – the first part – by clicking here.

Image by Aron Visuals on Unsplash.com

In the last post, we started learning about adverbs in Arabic and started focusing on the first type, which is temporal adverbs ظروف الزّمان

 

We learnt that there are 3 main types of temporal adverbs, depending on the function each type serves in relation to time.

These types are:

  • A specific reference to time إشارة محدّدة للوقت.
  • The duration of the verb مدة حدوث الفعل .
  • The extent of the frequency of the verb/action مدى تكرار الفعل/ الحدث

You can revise the adverbs that fall under the first type, in the previous blog post. In today’s post, we’re going to focus on the other 2 types.

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  • Duration of the verb مدة حدوث الفعل

This type of temporal adverbs refers to how long an action lasted كم استمر حدوث الفعل.

 

Examples:

for a day يومًا

for a year عامًا

 

Examples in sentences:

جلست في المكتبة ساعةً

I sat in the library for an hour

 

استمعت إلى المذياع فترةً

I listened to the radio for a while

 

ًلم أسافرإلّا شهرًا

I didn’t travelled but a month

 

Popular adverbs: 

for a moment لحظةً

For a while فترةً

for a day يومًا

for a week أسبوعًا

for a month شهرًا

for a year عامًا

a lifetime دهرًا

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  • The extent of the frequency of the action مدى تكرار الفعل/ الحد

This type of temporal adverbs refers to how often an action occurs or how frequent it is.

 

 Examples:

Often غالبًا

Never أبدًا

Examples in sentences:

أزور جدتي أحيانًا

I sometimes visit my grandmother

or

I visit my grandmother sometimes

 

يريد أحمد أن يكون الأفضل دائمًا

Ahmed always wants to be the best

 

لا تأكل فاطمة اللحوم أبدًا

Fatima never eats meat

 

Popular adverbs: 

Never أبدًا

Rarely نادرًا

Usually عادةً

Sometimes أحيانًا

Often غالبًا

Always دائمًا

every كلَّ

(Everyday) كلّ يوم*

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Exercise

تمرين

Fill in the gaps in the Arabic sentences below and specifically focus on putting the correct adverb (based on the English translation of the sentence): 

 

I haven’t been to the zoo since the death of my cat

……… لم …….….   ………   حديقة الحيوان …… موت

 

I’m going to leave this city next week

سأغادر …… المدينة  …….. القادم

 

…….. لم ………. أي ……..  ……….   رجوعي من

I haven’t eaten anything after coming back from college.

 

…….  ما أصل …..  …….. عملي ………

I rarely arrive at my workplace late

 

…….. يجب ….  ننتظر ……….. كاملين …… حجز

We have to wait for two full months, before booking the tickets.

 

أحب أن ………. أكلي من ……. المحليّة ………

I sometimes like to buy my food from the local markets 

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Correct Answers

الإجابات الصحيحة

 

لم أذهب إلى حديقة الحيوان منذ موت قطتي

 

سأغادر هذه المدينة الأسبوع القادم

 

لم آكل أي شيء بعد رجوعي من الكليّة

 

نادرًا ما أصل إلى مكان عملي متأخرًا

 

يجب أن ننتظر شهرين كاملين قبل حجز التذاكر

 

أحيانا أحب أن أشتري أكلي من الأسواق المحليّة

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I hope you found this post useful 😉

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About the Author: Hanan Ben Nafa

Hi, this is Hanan :) I'm an Arabic linguist. I completed my PhD in Linguistics - 2018. My PhD thesis was entitled Code-switching as an evaluative strategy: identity construction among Arabic-English bilinguals. I'm also a qualified public service translator & interpreter.


Comments:

  1. Mehmet Ali Özkılınç:

    Thank you very much for your postings. They are very useful.
    I hope it’ll continue .
    Best wishes.
    Again and again thank you very much.🌹🌹🌷