#glumblr

Hello hello, back again with something that really stumped me when I first started learning Arabic. The Dual!

In most languages, there is a singular form and a plural form, but in Arabic, they also have a Dual form! Used to refer to pairs of something or two people, it adds an ending to verbs/nouns which, you guessed it, then have their own conjugations!

It sounds really overwhelming, but in practice it isn't too difficult. In colloquial Arabic, the dual is really only used in regards to periods of time ( two hours ) or the parts of the body ( two eyes).

Endings

The nominative dual ending is: انِ

The accusative and genitive ending is: ...يْنِ

This is added to the singular of the word after removal of the case ending. For example:

From right to left: two books (nom.dual), book (nom)

كِتَابَانِ ------- كِتَابٌ

From right to left: two books (acc/gen.dual), book (acc)

كِتَابَيْنِ -------- كِتَابً

Special notes

If the noun ends in a taa marbuuta (), it becomes a regular ta () before the ending is added.

From right to left: Lady ( nominative), two ladies (nom.dual), two ladies (gen/acc.dual

سَيِّدَةٌ -------سَيِّدَتَانِ -------سَيِّدَتَيْنِ

If the noun ends in a hamza (), it changes into a waw () before the ending is added.

From right to left: desert ( nominative), two deserts (nom.dual), two deserts (gen/acc.dual)

صَحْرَاءٌ ------ صَحْرَاوَانِ ------- صَحْرَاوَيْنِ

Adjectives must agree with the nouns, and so they are also in dual.

عَندها عَيْنَانِ كَبِيْرَتَانِ

she had two large eyes.

If you're confused by what I mean by nominative, accusative and genitive, then please check out Arabic Essential Grammar #1!

Helllooo! Sorry that this weeks is a little late!

Following on from last week's introduction of the dual, I thought it might be a good time to look at the dual form of verbs and the dual pronouns.

These are used for saying phrases like "both of you ate the food", "they both looked strange" etch., specifying two people! This is something built into the grammar, and all in all, it's not as common as other forms (how often do you refer to just 2 of something??) but it's an important feature of Arabic!

With that let's get started~

Dual Pronouns

The bad news - you have to learn another 2 pronouns. The good news - thankfully, the dual is used for both genders ( you don't have a separate pronoun to refer to"2 women", for example.) NOTE: if you are using a gendered dual ( e.g. 2 girls (البنتان)), then you must use the corresponding gendered verb. Only the pronouns are non-gender specific.

Here they are:

انتما

هما

the top one is 'antumma (you two) and the bottom is humma (them two).

Subject Verb agreement is very important in Arabic, so here's how to form a dual verb to match these pronouns.

Dual verbs

Like nouns, the dual marker with verbs is ـان. However, if the verb is in the accusative or the genitive (see this post for more info on cases), the ن is dropped. For example:

أكل -- يأكلان --تأكلان -- يأكلا--تأكلا

Above from right to left we have:

I/he ate (past tense sing/masc)

those two eat (masculine e.g. the two boys eat, nominative, present tense)

those two eat ( feminine, e.g. the two girls eat, nominative, present tense)

those two eat (masc, gen/acc, present)

those two eat (fem., gen/acc, present)

Try out some other form 1 verbs ( if you want to know more about forms, check out this post!)

Hello everybody! It has been a while since I did one of these - I’m going to try to do this on a weekly basis again. This time, I am going off of  the book Modern Literary Arabic by David Cowan, but will add my own points and simplify where I can. Every Tuesday, I will aim to cover a topic that is essential to forming a strong basis in Arabic

I also need to work on my Arabic T.T so this is great for me too!

Today, we're talking about The Article - The Definite Article:

In English, we have "the" as the definite article and "a/an" as the indefinite articles. However, Arabic only has the definite article - ال. The indefinite is indicated by its absence.

Th article is prefixed to the word it defined, and the word loses its "n" ending ( Check Arabic Essential Grammar 1 to see why a noun might have different endings!).

e.g. اَلْكتَابُ كِتَابٌ

On the left, we have kitaabun and on the right we have al-kitaabu.

Here we can see the differnce between the indefinite ( left) and definite (right).

Pronunciation-wise, if a word comes before the "al", then it merges together with the previous consonant. e.g.

اَلْقَلَمُ و الكِتَابُ

is pronounced - al-Qalamu wal kitaabu.

The meaning is "the pen and the book".

The "al" is elided.

If there is a sun letter ( look these up and learn them!) following "al", then the "l" is skipped in favour of a shadda (doubled consonant) and the letter in front of it.

E.g.

اَلرّجُلُ

The Man - is pronounced arrajulu.

Hope that was helpful - try it out yourselves with a few different words - see if you can notice the pronunciation changes in a short video on Playaling!

Hello again! Sorry it’s been 2 weeks but I am *almost* done with my summer school woo!

ANYWAYS today’s topic was requested by somebody, but I can’t find who, so if you’re reading this, this is for YOU. 

Today we are looking at - 

Inna (إن) and Kaana (كان) and their sisters!

Sisters? in Grammar? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??

Don’t worry! I will do my best to explain. To understand this, you’ll need to know how cases work in Arabic, so go check out my post on this to get a basic understanding on the function of each case  and how it is represented. 

Okay, so what are Inna (إن) and Kaana (كان)?

They represent categories of words which affect the case of what follows them.  Yes, these are their “sisters”. So Inna and her sisters all follow one rule, and Kaana and her sisters follow another. Think of it as two different households, each having their own way of life  and their schedule. 

In grammatical terms, this “way of life” and “daily schedule” refers to the word order and the case of the different components of the sentence they’re in. 

These two households are important, since the words that fall into the categories are very common and necessary to have a nice written command of Arabic. 

Now before we get into the nitty gritty, make sure you have a good idea of what the subject ( المبتدا) and the predicate (الخبر) is in an Arabic nominal sentence. ( my post here introduces the concept quite succinctly!) . These are the two components whose cases are affected by Inna and Kaana!

Okay let’s go!

إن و أخواتها  - Inna and her sisters

Here are Inna and her sisters + their meanings - (note the shadda ّ  for some of them) 

 - إنّ - indeed ( inna)

- أنّ - that ( e.g. I heard that) (anna)

- كأنّ - as if, (ka’anna) 

- لكنّ - but (lakinna)

- ليت - i wish (layt)

- ّلعل - perhaps / i hope (la3alla) ( in comparison to “layt” which is wishful, “la3alla” implies something is more likely to occur)

- لأنّ - because (li’anna) 

now these are all used at the beginning of a sentence to have the desired meaning. However these have a catch  - whenever you use these, the subject of the sentence becomes mansuub (accusative) and the predicate becomes marfu’3 ( nominative). 

example sentence :المطرُ غزيرٌ - the rain is heavy - (al maṭaru ġazīrun) - both are in the nominative. 

- with Inna and akhwaatu-ha, this changes to - 

ليت المطرَ غزيرٌ - (layt al maṭara ġazīrun) I wish the rain was heavy - Here , the subject ( al maṭara)  is in the accusative as opposed to the nominative and the predicate remains in the nominative. 

This is the case, regardless if you wanted to say “ indeed the rain is heavy” or “as if the rain was heavy” or “ I heard that it was going to rain”. 

Why not give those sentences a try!! 

Okay now

كان و أخواتها - Kaana and her sisters

Kaana has a much bigger household lol - i have only included the most commonly used of her siblings. 

- كان - (past tense indicatior e.g. عندي = “i have” but كان عندي = “i had” ) (kaana)

- أصبح = to become (asbaḥa) 

- ظلّ - to stay, to remain (ẓalla)

- ليس - (negation indicator  - ليس عندي = “i don’t have”) (laysa)

- ما برح - ( indication of continuity) (maa bariḥa)

- مازال - to stay, remain ( sth that is continous to the present e.g. “has remained”) ( maa zaala) 

note - kaana and her sisters CONJUGATE to match their subject e.g. if you use ليس in the past tense first person singular, it will become لستُ ( i’m thinking of covering past tense conjugations next week! it’s a big one!) 

The catch when using these is the opposite to inna wa akhwaatu-ha - the subject of the sentence becomes marfu’3 ( nominative)  and the predicate becomes mansuub (accusative).

 so using the same example sentence , let’s use kaana wa akhwaatu-ha!

كان المطرُ غزيرً - (kaana maṭaru ġazīran) - the rain was heavy. 

Again, the same goes for everything else in kaana’s family. 

the end?? 

Okay, that about explains inna and kaana! It’s easier once you get your head around it. no I don’t know why it exists either. 

I know that some bits I have left quite vague ( like what the heck is an indication of continuity and how does negation work) but I’ve done that on purpose, because honestly those all belong their own posts and I want to focus on one topic at a time, to avoid getting you ( and myself!) all muddled~ 

Of course, you can explore any of the topics you want online - don’t feel like you have to wait for me! 

For books, I recommend the Routledge Arabic Grammar and the Modern Literary Arabic  by David Cowan ( old but gold!) - please try to buy them secondhand from somewhere other than amazon! let’s not support terrible working conditions! Even better - buy it local - support a charity! or your local bookshop, they definitely need it right now! 

also recommend Arabic.desert-sky.com for fantastic blog posts that are much more to the point than mine!

Thank you for reading! Please let me know of any glaring mistakes , suggestions and requests! I will do them allllll

Hello! Just as the title says - I want to help any A level students out there who are thinking of applying to Oxbridge , Russel Group unis in the coming months, for Humanities subjects (ESPECIALLY LANGUAGES!). 

I’m Sana, and I am entering my final year of studying German with Arabic at Oxford! I can help with admission advice, personal statements, interview tips and entrance examinations or just general advice if you’re not sure what to study at uni, unsure which uni is best etc! Obviously I can help a lot with Oxbridge and Modern languages specifically, but I can also help for other humanties subjects. I probably wont be as much help for STEM students , but send me a message anyway and maybe I can redirect you to a friend who knows more than!

Just send me a message and ask awayyyy~ 

Sorry to all the non-UK folks, I’m not sure about other countries university admissions process ( though I can certainly try!), so if this post isn’t relevant to you, do a gal a favour and reblog for those I could support.