Al- Kitaab 1 Grammar Lesson 1

المُؤَنّث  - Female

المُذَكَّر – Male

Unlike English (and similar to many other languages) Arabic differentiates between masculine and feminine nouns. With nouns this distinction is important because masculine nouns must have masculine adjectives and vice versa. When it comes to people this distinction is relatively easy (assuming you know the difference between a Man and a Woman; if you don’t, stop studying Arabic immediately and go ask your parents for the “birds and bees” speech). Where differentiating between male and female can be difficult is when it comes to inanimate objects and animals. Like many things in Arabic (and life) there is no hard and fast rule to determine whether a particular word is masculine or feminine. One “rule of thumb” to follow is that words with a ة at the end are almost always female (the exceptions are some classical Arabic words such as (خليفة. However, we cannot determine that a word is masculine simply because it does not have a ة. One example is the word حرب, which is feminine; my only guess is that some early grammarian had marital issues. The only reliable way to know whether a word is masculine or feminine is to pay attention to the way in which native speakers use them. The more Arabic study you get under your belt the more you will realize that there is simply no substitute for listening.

ال  - The Definite Article

The definite article in Arabic is represented by the ال which is the equivalent to THE English. One place where this is a very important concept to understand is when it comes to the names of God (there are a lot of them). There is a very big difference between الكبير and كبير or الكريم and كريم.

Sometimes in English we do not use “the” when it is generally understood which noun is being referred to. For example we may say “I am going to school”, in this statement it is understood to which school I am going. However, if I were to say انا سأذهب إلى مدرسة then I am literally saying “I am going to a school.” A general rule of thumb for this and other rules is that Arabic is an explicit language; meaning that it generally requires a higher degree of clarity as to what you are referring.

Note: Arabic is an “explicit language”

النِسبة

Egypt – Egyptian

مصر  - مصري

Done.

To nisbat-ize any noun 1) Remove ال , ة  and the final ى  then 2) add ي for مذكر or ية  for مؤنث.

السؤال

Asking questions is very important. When you visit an Arabic speaking country you will be asking many questions. Where is the bathroom? Why is that camel staring at me? Where is the bacon? (answer there is none) Where is the bathroom? Etc.

Luckily, asking questions in Arabic is generally simple. Also, once you’ve learned how to ask questions you can tackle all kinds of challenges like finding Mcdonalds, asking people their names and asking which camel is more likely to bite you. Learning how to ask questions is half the journey, then you just have to learn how to understand peoples’ answers (note: the second part of the journey is much, much longer).

1)      Yes/No questions

هل؟

In formal Arabic yes/no questions are formed using the article هل, as in هل هذا مسمَم؟ “Is this poisoned? (I told you this stuff was important).

Rising Intonation

As in most languages rising intonation in Arabic indicates a question and this is the method used in spoken Arabic.

2)      Information Questions

For questions that require more in depth answers than yes/ no (which it turns out is a lot of questions) the following words may come in handy.  I’ve included the استفهامات for MSA as well as the dialects the I know.

MSA

ما؟ - What (with nouns) ie “What is this? ما هذا؟

ماذا؟ - What (Verbs) ie “What are you doing?” ماذا تفعل؟

أيّ؟ - Which

مَن؟ -Who

أينَ؟ -Where

كيفَ؟ - How

الدارجة المغربية:

شنو / اش؟- What. Note: There is no distinction between what for nouns and verbs in dialect.

اشمن؟ - Which

شكون؟ - Who

فين؟ - Where

كيفاش؟ - How

اللهجة الشامية:

شو/ اش؟ - What

اي/ انو؟ - Which

مين؟ - Who

وين؟ - Where

كِيف؟ How

اللهجة المصرية:

ايه؟ - What

اي؟ - Which

مين؟ - who

فين؟ - Where

زي؟ - How

حروف جر  - prepositions commonly used in questions

مع  -With

في  - in

من – from

Note: Prepositions come before the question word in Arabic

في اي مدينة تسكن؟

من اين انت؟

مع من تدرس؟