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Arabic CheatSheet

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Abstract
This is a quick reference of concepts in the Arabic language.

1. Sentences without Verbs

English sentences are usually of the form Subject + Verb + Object. Recall that a verb is an “action word”; the subject is the one doing the action; and the object is the one having the action done to them. Arabic sentences do not need verbs! These are known as equational, non-verbal, sentences.

I am Samir ≈ سمير انا
He is tall ≈ طويل هو

Each sentence above has (1) a subject [the topic of the sentence: A noun or pronoun] and (2) a predicate [information about the topic; e.g., a noun or an adjective].

  • Notice the English has “am”, which is not needed in Arabic.
  • A noun is a person, place, or thing.
  • A pronoun is a word such as “He, him, her, this, that, …”

The predicate can either be a (pro)noun that renames the subject —as in \arb{سميرُ طالبٌ} which "renames" the subject Samir to the subject doctor—; or the predicate can be an adjective that describes the subject —as in \arb{سميرُ طويلٌ}. If the predicate is a definite noun (discussed below!), then it does not use nunation; e.g., \arb{هو الطالبُ} He is the doctor.

2. Adjectives

Adjectives, “descriptive words”, follow nouns and must agree with them in gender, number, definiteness, and case. The agreement is what distinguishes a noun-adjective phrase from an equational sentence!

the new book ≈ الكتابُ الجديدُ
The book is new. ≈ الکتابُ جديدُ.

3. Questions

The question marker هَلْ is placed at the start of a statement to turn it into a question.

You are a student. ≈ انت طالب.
Are you a student? ≈ هل انت طالب؟
  • ما has many uses in Arabic, one of them being the question word “what” ---which can only be used with things, not people!
  • مَنْ [`men'] means “who” and is used to refer to people. − (Becareful not to confuse this with the preposition from, مِنْ [`min']!)
  • أيْنَ means “where”.
What is this? ≈ ما هٰذا؟
Who is this? ≈ من هذا؟
Where are you from? ≈ مِنْ أين أنتَ؟

4. Inflection & Conjugation

The “shape” of an Arabic word changes to tell us information about the word.

  • “Conjugation”: Verbs change with who is doing the action.
  • “Case”, الاعراب: Nouns, and adjectives, change to tell us whether they are doing an action, are having something done to them, or own/possess something.

For example, in English, there are 3 ways to refer to oneself: I, me, my.

My cat saw me, and I jumped!

The shape of the word depends on its case. Here's the rules:

  • (Nominative!) When I am doing something, I say: I did it
  • (Accusative!) When something is being done to me, I say: It was done to me.
  • (Genitive!) When I have an item, I say: My thing….

So, in English, the word used to refer to myself changes depending on what is happening by me, to me, or of me / what I own.

5. Nominative Case

Case refers to the form a word —mostly nouns and adjectives— take depending on their function in a sentence. The subject of any sentence will always be in the nominative case, which is indicated by placing a ـُـ at the end of the word. The only other time a word will be in the nominative is if it is the predicate of a non-verbal sentence.

He is the student ≈ هو الطالبُ   huwa al-talib-u
He is a student ≈ هو طالبٌ   huwa talib-un

Pronouns, such as انا} and \arb{هذا, do not have case endings.

I am the teacher ≈ انا المدرسُ   ana al-mudaras-u

6. معرفة Definiteness

A word is considered definite معرفة when it refers to something specific in the world, and indefinite نكرة when it does not. For example, “a car” or “cars” do not refer to anything specific in the world and thus both examples are indefinite. Conversely, “my car” or “my cars” both refer to specific / known objects in the world and thus both examples are definite.

When is a word definite?

  1. If it is a proper name such as احمد.
  2. If it has the definite article ال/“the” in front of it.
  3. If it is a pronoun —i.e., it already refers to something. Such as هو or هذا.
  4. If it is owned by something; e.g., book is definite in both John's book (Idaafa) and his book (Possessive pronoun ending). Both concepts are discussed below!

7. Nunnation/Tanween

Arabic does not have an indefinite article: To make a word indefinite, we double its case ending; with the second instance pronounced as ن, “n”. This doubling of case endings, and adding the sound “n”, is known as Tanween. For the nominative case, the ــُــ is written twice but often written in the shape ــٌــ.

An indefinite adjective (usually one without ال) will have tanween:

The student is new ≈ الطالبُ جديدٌ   al-talib-u jadeed-un

8. Case endings of Equational Sentences

From the preceding discussions: Both the subject and predicate of an equational sentence should be in the nominative! Remember that the subject can be any (pro)noun and the predicate is any (pro)noun or adjective —if it is an adjective, then it is indefinite and so ends in ــٌــ.

9. Helping Vowels for أَل

  1. The hamza-fatha of the definite article أَل will always be replaced by the final vowel of the preceding word; thus the two words sound like one word!

    You (m) are the director ≈ انتَ المُدير antal-mudiir
    You (f) are the director ≈ انتِ المُديرة antil-mudiira

  2. When أَل} follows a “sun letter” is also not pronounced.

    You are the student ≈ انتَ الطّالب antat-talib

  3. Most words end in vowels, since Arabic case endings are vowels. If a word does not end in a vowel, such as هَلْ, then we add a helping kasra vowel:

    Is the director an idiot? ≈ هَلِ المُديرُ بليد؟ halil-mudiiru baled?

    The only exception to this rule is the word مَنْ, which gets a helping fatha vowel.

10. اسماء الإشارة —“This is a X” —“This X” —“This is the X”

  1. “This” هٰذا is used to refer to things that are close by, whereas “that” ذالِكَ refers to objects that are distant or is used in a constrast: هٰذا طالبٌ وذلِكَ مُدرِّسٌ, This is a student and that is a teacher. The feminine forms of “this” and “that” are هٰذِهِ and تِلْكَ.
  2. Whenever any of these 4 words is followed by a definite noun, we have one unit meaning “this noun”.
    • Such phrases often serve as the subjects of an equational sentence.
  3. We can separate this one unit into two pieces by inserting a pronoun in-the-middle, which gives us “This is the noun”.
1. This is a book. ≈ هذا كتاب.
2a. this book… ≈ هذا الكتاب...
2b. This book is heavy. ≈ هذا الكتابُ ثقيلٌ.
3. This is the book. ≈ هذا هو الكتابُ.

11. The Accusative Case

The Accusative Case is mostly used for the direct objects of verbs: It is indicated by a fatha. For example,

  I studied the book.
≈ دَرَسْتُ الكتابَ.

Notice that above we did not write أنا, “I”, since verbs change shape to tell us who is doing the action! (Changes to nouns is called case; changes to verbs is called conjugation!)

There is one more rule. To place an indefinite word not ending in ة} in the accusative —which makes the sound “an”. E.g., I studied a book becomes درستُ کتاباً.

12. Genitive Case

The genitive case is used for a word following a preposition or a word occuring as the second or later term in an Idaafa construction (discussed below).

Prepositions are words like عن، الی، لِ، بِ، في، علی، مِن، قبل: They are written “pre”ceeding a word and tell us something about its “position”.

The genitive case ending is a final kasra for a definite word and two kasras for an indefinite word, with the second kasra pronounded as ن as in the Nominative case.

Let's explain the following example.

انتَ المُديرُ في هٰذا المکتبِ
You are the director in this office.

Here انت المدير is an equational sentence followed by a prepositional phrase. Both the subject and predicate of an equational sentence should be in the nominative, but انت} is a pronoun and so does not take case. Moreover is definite, it takes a single dhamma. Finally, since هذا المكتب is a demonstrative followed by a definite it is treated grammatically as a single word, which means the (genitive) case ending goes at the very end of المكتب.

13. Idaafa

Idaafa means “addition“, or “annexation“, and it is used to indicate possesion in Arabic —just like how English uses 's to indicate possession.

  John's book
≈ the book of John
≈ كتابُ جون

Idaafa, possesion, is formed by putting nouns next to each other —to make a super-duper big noun, formally called a noun-phrase. That is all.

13.1. Noun-phrases of Idaafa

Noun-phrases are similar to nouns:

  • This noun-phrase is (in)definite exactly when its final noun is (in)definite.
  • This noun-phrase takes case endings on its first noun.
    • All other words in the noun-phrase must be in the genitive case.
    • Only the final noun can have nunnation.
  This is an office director's car
≈ This is a car of a director of an office
≈ هذه سيارةُ مديرِ مکتبٍ

13.2. Noun-phrases and “this”/“that”

Remember that demonstratives form noun-phrases and so can be used in-place of a noun in an Idaafa.

  The director of this office is stupid.
≈ مُديرُ هذا المكتبِ بليدٌ

This is an equational sentence. The subject is مدير هذا المکتب which needs to be in the nominative case, and it is definite since the last word is definite, thus only one dhamma needs to be added (to the first noun; and the last noun gets no nunnation). The topic is بليد which must also be in the nominative indefinite.

14. Descriptions for Idaafa

In English, a descriptive word can come before the owned item: John's heavy book. In Arabic, adjectives must follow the Idaafa and cannot interrupt it: کتاب جون الثقيل. For example, here is an equational sentence whose subject is a 3-term Idaafa followed by the adjective Arabic (remember only the last term in an Idaafa can have ال):

The study of Arabic grammar is enjoyable ≈ دراسةُ قواعدِ اللغةِ العربية مُمتعةٌ

14.1. Agreement

Since adjectives come after an Idaafa, how do we describe different parts of the Idaafa? Easy; adjectives must “agree” with the word they describe: They must have the same gender, number, definiteness, and case as the word being described.

The teacher's new book is in the office. ≈ . كتابُ المدرسِ الجديدُ في المکتبِ
The new teacher's book is in the office. ≈ . کتابُ المدرسِ الجديدِ في المکتبِ

(Usually only the last term of an Idaafa is actually modified by an adjective.)

14.2. Multiple adjectives

Of-course you can modify multiple words, or use multiple modifiers on the same word!

the new student of the Americian university ≈ طالبةُ الجامعةِ الامريکيةِ الجديدةُ
the student of the new Americian university ≈ طالبةُ الجامعةِ الامريکيةِ الجديدةِ

15. Sound Plurals

A sound plural is an ending added to a word to make it plural. The ending communicates gender, case, and definiteness.

  Nominative Genitive & Accusative
Masculine indefinite ـونَ ـينَ
Masculine definite ـي ـو
Feminine definite ـاتٌ ـاتٍ
Feminine definite ـاتُ ـاتِ

Notice that the usual small nunation symbols making the ن-sound actual become the ن-letter! As such, the actual ن is written or not depending on the general rules of nunnation.

In Arabic, you must learn the plural of each word when you learn its singular form. However, many words referring to human males have sound plurals. Likewise, many words ending in ة have a feminine plural by replacing the final ة with ـات.

For example,

I saw the directors. ≈ رَأیْتُ المُدیرينَ.
The directors are superb. ≈ المُديرونَ ممتازونَ.
The (female) directors are superb. ≈ المُديراتُ ممتازاتُ.
I saw the newspaper reporters. ≈ شاهدتُ مراسلي الجريدةِ.

15.1. Sound Plurals and Possessive Endings

Remember: Possessive endings make words genitive & definite, and so nunnation cannot apply.

his teacher ≈ مُدرسهُ
his teachers ≈ مُدرسيهِ
my teacher ≈ مُدرسي
my teachers ≈ مُدرسيّ

Let's talk more about possessive endings… ;-)

16. Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that stands-in for a noun. For example, below we refer to someone in 3 different ways:

His cat saw him, and he jumped!

16.1. Personal Pronouns

A personal pronoun replaces a noun that refers to a person (e.g., Jasim ate ≈ he ate),

  singular plural
1 أنا I نَحْنُ we
2m أَنْتَ you انْتُمْ you
2f أَنْتِ you انتُنَّ you
3m هُوَ he/it هُمْ they
3f هِيَ she/it هُنَّ they

When I am talking, the speaker is the “first person” (“1”); when taking about you, then you are the “second person” and may be masculine (“2m”) or feminine (“2f”), or a group of you (“plural”); finally, when talking about someone who is not here in the conversation, they are in the “third person” (“3m, 3f”).

16.2. Possessive & Object Pronouns

A possessive pronoun replaces a noun that involves ownership (e.g., Jasim's book ≈ his book), while an object pronoun replaces a noun that is having an action done to it (e.g., I saw Jasim ≈ I saw him.)

In Arabic, possessive and object pronouns are attached pronouns; they are joined to the end of a word: For example, house بیت becomes my house بیتِي and from he helped نَصَرَ we get نَصَرَني he helped me. Arabic's object & possessive pronouns are the same, except for the “my/me” case:

  singular plural
1 ـِي my; ـني me ـنَا our/us
2m ـكَ your/you كُمْ your/you
2f ـكِ your/you كُنَّ your/you
3m ـَهُ his/him ـهُمْ their/them
3f ـَهَا hers/her ـهُنَّ their/them

The dhamma of the endings ـهُ ، ـهُم ، ـهُنَّ becomes a kasra whenver these endings come after a kasra or a ي.

an office ≈ مکتبٌ
in an office ≈ في مکتبِ
in his office ≈ في مکتبِهِ

17. Kinds of Arabic Verbs

Sound Verbs
Verbs with no \arb{و} or \arb{ي} as a root.
Defective Verbs
Verbs whose last root is either \arb{و} or \arb{ي}.
Hollow Verbs
Verbs whose middle root is either \arb{و} or \arb{ي}.
Assimilated Verbs
Verbs whose first root is either \arb{و} or \arb{ي}.
Doubled Verbs
Verbs whose second and third roots are the same.

These are not a big deal. They happen often enough to get names.

 

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