Teaching: intermediate and advanced conversational arabic and arabic elementary
1. The Feminine Marker.
As in many other languages, any Arabic noun/adjective has to be either masculine or feminine. With few exceptions, the general rule is to suffix the Taa’ MarbuTa (ـة/ة) to the masculine noun/adjective forms to derive the feminine ones. Examples are:
nouns استاذ/استاذة ، مراسل/مراسلة ، طالب/طالبة
adjectives قديم/قديمة، جميل/جميلة ، جديد/جديدة
However, you need to remember that the Taa’ Marbuta (ـة/ة) is used in certain ancient Arabic male proper names such as:
طلحة ، معاوية ، حمزة
Also, it is used on some broken plural patterns such as:
(giant ) عملاق/عمالقة (professor/s) استاذ/استاذة
12. The Personal pronouns are used to replace nouns.
The following is a list of the singular (1-5) and plural forms (6-10):
نحن6 . انا1
.انتم7 . انتَ2
8.انتنََّ . انتِ3
. هُم 9 . هو4
10. هُنَّ . هي5
3. All countries, towns, villages, etc. are treated as feminine. The exceptions to this rule are six Arab countries. These are:
الکويت , لُبنان , السودان , العراق , الأردُن , المغرب
4. Definiteness in Arabic.
As you might have noticed in the phrases in point #1 above, adjectives in Arabic usually follow nouns and agree with them in terms of number, gender, case, and definiteness/indefiniteness.
a. a small book کتابٌ صغيرٌ
b. the book is small الکتابُ صغيرٌ
If an adjective completely agrees with its noun in every aspect, then you have a phrase, as in examples (a) and (b) below. However, if a noun (subject) is definite and its adjective (predicate) is indefinite you have a sentence, as in ©.
(a) a new house بيتٌ جديدٌ
(b) the new house البيتُ الجديدُ
© The house is new البيتُ جديدٌ
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