What is Alif al-Wasl? What is alif al-wasl أَلِفُ الْوَصْلِ? The word وَصْل wasl means ‘connection’. So, alif al-wasl أَلِفُ الْوَصْلِ is the ‘connective alif.’ It connects the word in which it occurs with the preceding word. The purpose of this is to make Arabic speech sound natural and connected. It always occurs at the beginning of certain verbs, certain nouns, and the defi…

What is Tanween in Arabic? tanween in Arabic (also transliterated as tanwin) has to do with the sound ن noon. To be precise, it is an acoustic ن (i.e. said but not written). This ن is added to the end of nouns. Only nouns get tanween, but not all nouns. Certain nouns; all types of pronouns, which are classified as nouns in Arabic; verbs; and particles (e.g. prepositions, words…

Simple Arabic Grammar Terms (1) Arabic grammar terms of the previous lessons are listed and explained. Besides the explanation of the terms, examples are given. A word that can be a subject فَاعِل, a topic مُبْتَدَأ, a predicate خَبَر, an object of a verb مَفْعُول, or an object of a preposition اٍسْم مَجْرُور.     كِتَابٌ – a book     أَحْمَدُ – Ahmed     شَج…

The Basic Present Verbal Sentence in Arabic Similar to the basic past verbal sentence, the basic present verbal sentence in Arabic الْجُمْلَةُ الْفِعْلِيَّةُ الْبَسِيطَةُ is composed of a verb فِعْل, a subject فَاعِل, and an object مَفْعُول, which can be optional, depending on the type of the verb. It always starts with the verb. The verb can be intransitive لَازِم or transiti…

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (35) Read the Story مَاكْبِث and answer the following questions.

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (34) Read the Story الْمَلِكُ عَجِيبٌ and answer the following questions.

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (33) Read the Story تَاجِرُ بَغْدَادَ and answer the following questions.

Arabic Reading Comprehension Test (32) Read the Story بِنْتُ الصَّبَّاغ and answer the following questions.

Attached pronouns in Arabic are the pronouns that we attach to verbs, nouns, prepositions, or particles. Generally speaking, pronouns in Arabic are separate, attached, or implicit (i.e. implied or not overt). The separate pronouns  in Arabic are similar to the subject pronouns found in most world languages in addition to the dual and feminine forms that exist in Arabic. As for …

Arabic is a right-to-left cursive language. This short e-book "Ibnulyemen Arabic Alphabet and Cursive Writing" typographically shows how the Arabic letters are connected to to form words. There are twenty-eight letters in Arabic. Each letter has four shapes: at the beginning of the word, in the middle of the word, at the end of the word, and in isolation. This, as a result, see…

This is a short e-book of eleven short stories written in simplified Arabic. The original versions of these stories were written by Kamel Kilani and Mohammed Al-Abrashi, both Egyptian writers. They are fairly long and meant for native speakers of Arabic. The wording and structures of these stories have been tweaked and simplified to make them suitable for (advanced) beginner le…

Attached pronouns in Arabic are pronominal suffixes; for each separate pronoun there is a corresponding attached pronoun. These pronominal suffixes are are attached to nouns, prepositions, and verbs. With nouns, they function as possessive pronouns. With preposition, they function as object of prepositions. With verbs, they function as either subjects or objects.  In the table …