Arabic_for_Dummies

“To be” in the past tense

Arabic’s verb for “was/were” (in other words, “to be” in the past tense) is kaana (kah-nah; was/were). Similar to the negative form of “to be,” the past form is an irregular verb form conjugated using all the personal pronouns.

Here are some sentences featuring kaana:

‘anaa kuntu mariiD. (ah-nah koon-too mah-reed; I was sick.)

‘anta kunta fii al-maktaba. (an-tah koon-tah fee al-mak-tah-bah; You were in the library.)

hiya kaanat qariiba min al-manzil. (hee-yah kah-nat kah-ree-bah meen al-man-zeel; She was close to the house.)

naHnu kunnaa fii al-masbaH. (nah-noo koo-nah fee al-mas-bah; We were in the swimming pool.)

al-madrasa kaanat ‘amaama al-maT’am. (al-mad-rah-sah kah-nat ah-mah-mah al-mat-ham; The school was close to the restaurant.)

al-kitaab al-‘azraq kaana fawqa aT-Taawila aS-Saghiira. (al-kee-tab al-az-rak kah-nah faw-kah ah-tah-wee-lah ah-sah-gee-rah; The blue book was on top of the small table.)

al-‘imra’a wa ar-rajul kaanaa fii al-Hubb. (al-eem-rah-ah wah ah-rah-jool kah-nah fee al-hoob; The woman and the man were in love.)

Compare the conjugations of darasa and kataba and you probably see a clear pattern emerge: Every personal pronoun has a corresponding suffix used to conjugate and identify the verb form in its specific tense. Table 2-8 outlines these specific suffixes.

Table 2-8 Personal Pronoun Suffixes for Verbs in the Past Tense

Anytime you come across a regular verb you want to conjugate in the past tense, use these verb suffixes with the corresponding personal pronouns.

At this stage, you should know that not all regular verbs in the past tense have three consonants. Some regular verbs have more than three consonants, such as:

tafarraja (tah-fah-rah-jah; watched)

takallama (tah-kah-lah-mah; spoke)

Even though these verbs have more than three consonants, they’re still considered regular verbs. To conjugate them, you keep the first part of the word constant and only change the last consonant of the word using the corresponding suffixes to match the personal pronouns. To get a better sense of this conversion, take a look at the verb takallama (spoke) conjugated in the past tense. Notice that the first part of the word stays the same; only the ending changes.

When you know how to conjugate verbs in the past tense, your sentencebuilding options are endless. Here are some simple sentences that combine nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the past tense:

‘al-walad dhahaba ‘ilaa al-madrasa. (al-wah-lad zah-hah-bah ee-lah al- mad-rah-sah; The boy went to the school.)

al-bint takallamat fii al-qism. (al-bee-net tah-kah-lah-mat fee al-kee-sem;

The girl spoke in the classroom.)

‘akalnaa Ta’aam ladhiidh. (ah-kal-nah tah-am lah-zeez; We ate delicious food.)

dhahaba ar-rajul ‘ilaa al-jaami’a fii as-sayaara. (zah-hah-bah ah-rah-jool ee-lah al-jah-mee-ah fee ah-sah-yah-rah; The man went to the school in the car.)

Examining the present tense

Conjugating verbs in the past tense is relatively straightforward, but conjugating verbs in the present tense is a bit trickier. Instead of changing only the ending of the verb, you must also alter its beginning. In other words, you need to be familiar not only with the suffix but also the prefix that corresponds to each personal pronoun.

To illustrate the difference between past and present tense, the verb kataba (wrote) is conjugated as yaktubu (yak-too-boo; to write), whereas the verb darasa (studied) is yadrusu (yad-roo-soo; to study).

Here’s the verb yaktubu (to write) conjugated using all the personal pronouns. Notice how both the suffixes and prefixes change in the present tense.

As you can see, you need to be familiar with both the prefixes and suffixes to conjugate verbs in the present tense. Table 2-9 includes every personal pronoun with its corresponding prefix and suffix for the present tense.

Table 2-9 Personal Pronoun Prefixes and Suffixes for Verbs in the Present Tense

Aside from prefixes and suffixes, another major difference between the past and present tenses in Arabic is that every verb in the present tense has a dominant vowel that’s unique and distinctive. For example, the dominant vowel in yaktubu is a damma (dah-mah; “ooh” sound). However, in the verb yaf’alu (yaf-ah-loo; to do), the dominant vowel is the fatHa (fat-hah; “ah” sound). This means that when you conjugate the verb yaf’alu using the personal pronoun

‘anaa, you say ‘anaa ‘af’alu and not ‘anaa ‘af’ulu. For complete coverage of Arabic vowels (damma, fatHa, and kasra), check out Chapter 1.

The dominant vowel is always the middle vowel. Unfortunately, there’s no hard rule you can use to determine which dominant vowel is associated with each verb. The best way to identify the dominant vowel is to look up the verb in the qaamuus (kah-moos; dictionary).

In this list, I divided up some of the most common Arabic verbs according to their dominant vowels:

damma

•yaktubu (yak-too-boo; to write)

•yadrusu (yad-roo-soo; to study)

•ya’kulu (yah-koo-loo; to eat)

•yaskunu (yas-koo-noo; to live)

fatHa

•yaf’alu (yaf-ah-loo; to do)

•yaqra’u (yak-rah-oo; to read)

•yadhhabu (yaz-hah-boo; to go)

•yaftaHu (yaf-tah-hoo; to open)

Examining irregular verb forms

Arabic uses both regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs have a specific pattern and follow a specific set of rules, but irregular verbs do not. Because these irregular forms include some of the most common verbs in the language (such as “to buy,” “to sell,” and “to give”), you should examine them separately. This section looks at some of the most common irregular verbs in the Arabic language.

The verb “to sell” is conjugated as baa’a (bah-ah; sold) in the past tense. In the conjugation that follows, notice that unlike regular verbs, baa’a has only two consonants (the baa’ and the ‘ayn).