Language Learning

This lesson is about the attached subject pronouns with the regular imperfective verbs. The attached subject pronoun ضَمِيْر فَاعِل مُتَّصِل, as its name suggests, functions as the verb subject. In the previous lesson, you learned about the attached subject pronouns that we add to the perfective verb الفِعْل المَاضِي. In this lesson, we focus on those that we attach to the regu…

In Arabic, connected pronouns can be attached to verbs, nouns, or prepositions. If attached to verbs, they can be a subject (the doer of the action) فَاعِل or an object (the receiver of the action) مَفْعُول. In this lesson, we look at the connected subject pronouns with regular perfective verbs الْفِعْلُ الْمَاضِي. In a previous lesson, we briefly looked at the common personal …

50 Common Arabic Regular Verbs 50 Common Arabic regular verbs are listed below. These verbs are regular (strong) because their root form does not change while adding pronominal suffixes or prefixes to them. Based on the letters they are composed of, verbs الْأَفْعَال in Arabic are classified into regular (strong) and irregular (weak). The regular are the verbs that do not incl…

Basic Word Formation in Arabic Word formation in Arabic is the process of creating new words by means of adding prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or changing the diacritical marks in the word roots. Take the Arabic word root كَتَبَ 'he wrote' which is a verb. By adding the prefix مَـ to it and changing the short vowels over the كـ and ـب, it becomes مَكْتَبٌ 'an office' which is a …

Sun and Moon Letters Arabic letters are classified into two categories: sun letters and moon letters. The definite article الْـ 'the' triggers this classification. الْـ precedes indefinite nouns and adjectives (i.e., prefixed to them). Basically, the لْـ in الْـ assimilates to certain subsequent letters. These letters are called sun letters (also solar letters). And it (لْـ) d…

Difficult Arabic Letters Difficult Arabic Letters are the letters that are produced from the same area in the mouth or oral cavity. Linguistically, let's call them difficult Arabic sounds since we are speaking about articulation. These sounds (or letters) differ in one or two phonetic or pronunciation feature, such as being voiced (accompanied by vibration in the vocal cords) …

Arabic Cursive Writing (2) One characteristic of Arabic that makes its writing easy is that it is a phonetic language. That is, there is generally a one-to-one correspondence between the spoken form and the written form. In other words, there are no silent letters as is the case with English and French. This is especially true when writing isolated words. However, in writing n…

The Inception of Arabic Grammar The person behind the beginnings/inception of Arabic grammar was Imam Ali ben Abi Talib الْإِمَامُ عَلِيٌّ بِنْ أَبِي طَالِب, the cousin of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and his son in-law. He wrote the first rules that governed people's speech. Then he passed it on to Abu al-Aswad Dalim ben Amr ben Sufyan al-Duu’ali who was his companion and was famo…

Arabic Cursive Writing (1) In the previous lesson, you learned why a word in Arabic that constitutes the same letters can have multiple different meanings and pronunciations. The word سلم is composed of س, then ل, and finally م. Their shape in isolation is slightly different from their shape in a word. In this lesson, we will learn how to join Arabic letters to form words. Un…

Arabic Diacritics (3) Diacritics in Arabic determines word meanings. In the previous lesson, you learned about the shape of the diacritical marks. You also became familiar with their pronunciation. Additionally, you  learned where we position them in relation to letters, i.e. above or below the letter. This lesson is about the importance and role of diacritics. We call the fou…

Arabic Diacritics (2) In the Arabic Diacritics (1), you learned that Arabic diacritics are vocal letters. That is, we do not write them like the regular letters of the Arabic alphabet. Rather, they are marks or signs that we add above or below the letter. Textually, they you can see them in the Holy Quran, children's books, most school textbooks, and some books of poetry. We c…

Arabic Diacritics (1) Arabic diacritics are vocal letters, i.e. marks, signs, or symbols. Put differently, they are not written letters. Therefore, Arabic letters indicate consonants and long vowels only. Linguistically, vocal letters do not exist in many world languages. In such languages, the vocal letters are part of the alphabetic system. That is, they are the vowel letter…

Transliteration of Arabic Letters Translation of Arabic letters is not recommended. However, in the initial stages of learning, using transliteration is inevitable and sometime useful. It facilitates transition from the pure beginner stage to the upper-beginner stage; plus, it speeds up learning. This lesson presents the actual pronunciation of Arabic sounds in English sounds,…

Arabic Alphabet (2)  The Arabic alphabet and long vowels are the focus of this lesson. In previous lesson, you learned the Arabic letters and their pronunciation which varies according to the short vowels (al-ħarakaat al-qaSiirah, الْحَرَكَاتُ الْقَصِيرَة) that accompany them. For example, we pronounce the letter ل as لَ la, لِ, li, or لُ lu. What if long vowels follow the let…