Language Learning

Common Arabic verbs are listed below. These verbs are regular because their root form does not change while adding suffixes or prefixes to them. Based on the letters they are composed of, verbs الأَفْعَال in Arabic are classified into regular and irregular. The regular are the verbs that do not include a weak letter (i.e. ا, و, or ي). When conjugated into the various verb forms, they do not violate the prescribed rules.

Common Arabic Verbs

The table below includes fifty common regular verbs. A possible completion / complement follows each verb to form a phrasal verb. The form of all these verbs is perfective مَاضِي with the third person masculine singular, that is هُوَ. Hence, جَلَسَ عَلَى الكُرْسِي, for example, literally translates as ‘he sat on the chair’; أكَل تُفَّاحَةً ‘he ate an apple’; خَلَعَ القَمِيْص ‘he took off the shirt’; and so forth.

Also, note that every verb in the list always ends in fatHah, and that this form is the basic form the Arabic verb, i.e. the root.

In the next post, we learn how to conjugate these verbs with nouns and other pronouns in the perfective form الفِعْل المَاضِي to create meaningful sentences.