Al-Hal (the state) / الحال
Regular ḥāl with a noun The word al-hal in Arabic (الحال) means ‘the circumstance, condition, or state’ in Arabic. Grammatically it refers to an adjective…
Category: Arabic grammar: Intermediate
Enhance your Arabic skills with our “Arabic Grammar: Intermediate” sub-category, featuring posts covering intermediate grammar concepts. Improve your understanding and fluency with our in-depth and easy-to-follow lessons.
Ordinal numbers, fractions and the expression of time / الأَعْداد الـتَرْتِيبِيّة والكُسُور والتَعْبِير عَن الوَقْت
Ordinal numbers Unlike cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers in Arabic must conform to the gender and case of their head noun, they are inflected for all…
Kāna and its sisters / كانَ وأَخَواتُها
Kana and its sisters are verbs when placed as head constituents of a nominal sentence, put the information/predicative complement (الخَبَر) in the accusative case (مَنْصُوب);…
irregular verbs / الأَفْعال غَيْر السالِمة
Amongst the irregular verbs in Arabic, some root words are classified as “healthy” (صَحِيح), and others are labeled as “weak” (مُعْتَلّ) litt. diseased. أَكَلَ to eat…
Inna and its sisters / إِنّ وأَخَواتُها
Inna and its sisters (إِنّ وَأَخَواتُها) are accusative particles that can only be followed by a noun, an attached pronouns (ضَمائِر مُتَّصِلة), a demonstrative or…
The negative copula “laysa” / لَيْسَ
The negative copula لَيْسَ laysa in Arabic, meaning ‘not to be’, is used to turn a nominal sentence into the negative form. Uniquely, this verb…
The imperative tense / الأَمْر
Form I / الوَزْن الأَوّل The Arabic imperative verb is formed by stripping away the prefix تَـ from the 2nd person jussive and adding a…
The subjunctive and jussive moods / المُضارِع المَنْصُوب والمُضارِع المَجْزُوم
The subjunctive and jussive in Arabic are important grammatical structures. Both moods are formed by modifying the endings of the verb, and they have specific…