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As you know, many adjectives have the فَعيل pattern. Among them are قريب , بعيد , كبير , كثير and طويل . For these adjectives there is a special pattern (called the elative in most textbooks) which provides both the comparative and superlative adjectives. This same pattern is also used for adjectives which vary slightlyContinue reading “A: The Comparative and Superlative”

The passive voice is widely used in Arabic without the negative associations regarding style that the passive voice has in English. American students are often uncomfortable with the passive voice when reading Arabic texts because the unvoweled passive conjugations often look exactly like active voice conjugations. Since many students often are horrified at the thoughtContinue reading “B: The Passive Voice”

The active participle is known in Arabic as اسم الفاعل The word فاعل refers to the form the participles take when derived from a Form I verb. The active participle (AP) is essentially an adjective closely related in meaning to the meaning of the verb. However, active participles are often also used as nouns. ForContinue reading “E: Active and Passive Participles Forms I and II”

The verb يكون ,كانَ. is a Form I hollow verb which conjugates exactly like يَزورُ , زارَ Therefore, the conjugations for this verb for the perfect, imperfect indicative, jussive and subjunctive (once we deal with the subjunctive in a later chapter) should pose no problem for the student who has mastered the conjugation of FormContinue reading “G: كانَ”

لَيْسَ is a verb which gives American students fits. I believe the reason for this is that the verb is introduced to students too early in their study of Arabic. Often it is the first verb they are taught. The verb poses several problems for the novice student. It is hollow, its conjugations are theContinue reading “F: لَيْسَ”

The nisba adjective is the “relative” adjective in Arabic. It is often used with place names. For example, a man from Baghdad can be referred to as بغدادي What we have done is we have added the suffix يّ ( the letter ي with a shadda) to the name of the city. Thus a maleContinue reading “C: The Nisba Adjective”

The idaafa is an extremely important construction in Arabic. It is very easy, basic, and ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for any student of the language who wants ever to be able to do anything at all in Arabic. I am upset about the number of students who have had several years of Arabic and do not knowContinue reading “C: The Idaafa”

The nominative case is used in an Arabic sentence primarily in two situations. The first is for the subject of any sentence. That is to say, until I tell you otherwise, the subject of any sentence will always be in the nominative case. The only other time a word will be in the nominative caseContinue reading “D: The Nominative Case”

There are two kinds of sentences in Arabic, those with a verb and those without a verb. For the first few lessons we will deal with those sentences which have no verb. These sentences have the fancy name “equational sentences” but do not be put off by the terminology. Equational sentences are sentences which wouldContinue reading “A: The Equational Sentence”