Learn some simple tricks for learning Arabic grammar
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| Halla: أهلا و سهلا Everyone. |
| Simon: Simon here all about lesson 3, basic Arabic grammar. Now guys, I know this is the G lessons, but the big bad G word, nothing to be scared of, just a few words we need to introduce you to. |
| Halla: Before we look at Arabic grammar, let’s quickly review English grammar. English is an SVO language – subject, verb and object. “I eat fruit”. So, subject is “I”. “Eat” is the verb. Object is the “fruit”. Arabic is the same as English. So if we’re going to translate, “I eat fruit”, it will be أنا . أنا آكل فاكهة, that’s “I”, the subject; آكل “to eat”, the verb; فاكهة “fruit” and this is the object. |
| Simon: In Arabic, there are two kinds of sentences – the verbal sentence, which starts with a verb and the subject follows. The verb is always in the singular form even for cases where the subject is dual or plural. All the verb can come after the subject, and in this case, it must agree with it – single, dual, plural, also masculine and feminine. |
| Halla: This is very important to remember, guys – the agreement. |
| Simon: Then we have the nominal sentence. It’s a sentence which starts with a noun. The nominal sentence normally starts with a definite noun. This first noun is then followed by another noun, which is indefinite. |
| Halla: Now, we have a good news group and another bad news group. Let’s start with the bad news group. English has one form of the verb in sentences or two forms in the rest of them. It changes with the third person and the inanimate. But in Arabic, the verb will be conjugated according to the person. Therefore, we don’t have to use the subject pronoun like I, you, he, she, we and so on. It’s the same with languages like Spanish, French and Italian. |
| Simon: Well, allow me to say the good news, {Halla} – tenses. English has three simple tenses – the present, the past and the future. While Arabic has two main tenses – the perfect tense and the imperfect tense, also known as the present tense. |
| Halla: Also, the gender. Arabic has two genders expressed by prominal as well as by verbal agreement. |
| Simon: Agreement with numerals shows a peculiar polarity. The genders are usually referred to as masculine and feminine. |
| Halla: But the situation is more complicated than that. The feminine gender is also used to express singulatives. |
| Simon: Well I think that’s clear and easy enough if you get used to it. What I’m going to talk about is the plural. In Arabic, there are two types of noun and adjective plural forms – sound regular plurals and broken irregular plurals. Masculine sound plural nouns end in “un” and feminine sound plural nouns end in “et”. |
| Halla: Great summary Simon and very clear. |
| Simon: Thanks. Can you tell us something about pronouns? |
| Halla: Sure. Pronouns in Arabic belong to the category of nouns and, therefore, everything that applies to nouns will apply to them. Pronouns have genders, numbers and grammatical case. Pronouns are always definite nouns, and pronouns in Arabic are four categories. |
| Simon: Subject pronouns, separate subject pronouns, attached subject pronouns. |
| Halla: And finally, object pronouns, separate object pronouns and attached object pronouns. |
| Simon: Guys, when studying Arabic, one of the most important lessons you will take is pronouns. Arabic subject pronouns may seem more complicated than their English counterparts since there are 12 of them to address males and females, in singular, dual and plural forms, this is really important. So don’t forget it. |
| Halla: What else can we talk about? How about conjugation? |
| Simon: Oh yeah. You go ahead with that. |
| Halla: Okay, thanks Simon. Conjugation is all about how verbs change between sentences depending on a number of factors. The three most important factors in Arabic are person, gender and number. |
| Simon: And unlike English, in Arabic gender matters and there are three numbers –singular, dual and plural, where plural means more than two. In Arabic, words have gender which affects conjugation of the verb. This is very important to remember. |
| Halla: I’m sure it will take some time to get all of this, but when you practice it, it will be much more easier. So, thank you Simon. This has been really great. |
| Simon: Thank you {Halla}. |
| Halla: See you in next lesson guys. مع السّلامة |
Comments
HideWhat do you think about the Arabic Grammar? : )
Hi Saree,
Unfortunately we do not provide lessons in Qatari Arabic at this point. You could check out our Modern Standard Arabic lessons and our Egyptian Arabic lessons as they will help you navigate Qatar.
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Hi Alex,
That's great to hear! Indeed Arabic and Spanish have a lot in common!
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Marhaban Arabicpod101.
As a Spanish speaker I think the nouns and pronouns are going to be easier to understand.
Let's continue the journey!
Shukran!
Hello Ana,
Thank you for posting!
Please check out this video lesson as well:
Introduction to Arabic Grammar
https://www.arabicpod101.com/lesson/introduction-to-arabic-3-introduction-to-arabic-grammar/
And our Arabic Grammar Bank:
https://www.arabicpod101.com/arabic-grammar/
Our [Lesson Grammar Points Search] allows you to search through hundreds of lesson grammar points to find the grammar point you're looking for.👍
Hope this helps! Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team ArabicPod101.com
Will you guys go over more on Arabic grammar because this is still confusing. I think this isn’t even 5% of Arabic grammar
Hi Noor,
Yes. They are of distant language families.
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Arabic grammars totally different than English :flushed:
Hi Saya,
It takes time, I know. Good luck!
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
headache?
:grin:
:sweat_smile:
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
But worth the challenge. thanks for such thorough coverage.
Hi Nasr,
Yeah! Dual means 2 people/things :)
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Nevermind I figured it out it was "dual" the "d" just sounded like a "j" because of his accent
Salam wa alaykum,
He said three words: singular, 'jule', and plural.
How do you spell the second term and what does it mean?
Hi Siddiq,
We try to do that as much as possible in the more advanced lessons. Thank you for your feedback! much appreciated :thumbsup:
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
i think it would be better if you say the terms in arabic as well like Ism Fahel aqsam of ism and stuff wahid tasnia jamha
Hello Shahid!
Thank you for your nice comment! I am glad you like it! :smile:
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Engla
Team ArabicPod101.com
Great Coaching i like this
Hi Hammad!
Thank you for your support and your feedback. Can you tell us if this problem happens again next time?
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Hey Arabic101 team,
Looking forward to learning with all this great material, My compliments on the great support I see there in the comments section.
One question though, every lesson's audio seems to stuck in the middle, upon refreshing the page it starts over... Not a big problem but that's my feedback so far!
Hammad Shahid Hafeez
Hi Hannah,
Thank you :D :heart:
Good luck!
Nora
Team ArabicPod101.com
Thank you very much for the awesome work. It is very useful and informative. :thumbsup: