Posts from September 2009

Adverbs part3

Posted by aziza No Comments
Sep 12 2009

In the previous posts, I explained different types of adverbials in Arabic, including words that mainly function as adverbs like (جداً); adverbs that are derived from adjectives, e.g. قليلاً derived from قليل “little”; adverbs that are formed by the preposition (ب) and the verbal noun like (بكثرة) “a lot”, adverbs that are derived from active participle (اسم الفاعل) like (مفكِراً) “thinking” and the passive participle (اسم المفعول) like (مقتولاً) “dead/murdered”.

Sentences can also be used as adverbs in Arabic as well, i.e. both nominal and verbal sentences. Consider the following examples:

جلست في غرفتي أفكر في المشكلة.

جلست في غرفتي وأنا أفكر في المشكلة.

“I sat in my room thinking about the problem.”

جاءت صديقتي تجري.

جاءت صديقتي وهي تجري.

“My friend came running.”

There is an expression that can be used to express adverbials in Arabic. This expression means “in a — way”, and it can be expressed either (بشكل —) or (بصورة —). We need to use an appropriate adjective with it, e.g.

زاد عدد المدخنين بشكل كبير / بصورة كبيرة

“The number of smokers increased considerably.”

Adverbs part2

Posted by aziza No Comments
Sep 9 2009

In the previous post, I explained that adverbs describe verbs, and that we can derive adverbs from verbs, e.g. كثيراً is derived from كثير “much”. In this post, I present 2 constructions that are used as adverbs in Arabic. The first one is a prepositional phrase. If we use the preposition (ب) followed by the verbal noun, we have an adverbial, e.g. بسرعة “fast”,بكثرة “much”, etc.

لا تدخن بكثرة.

“Do not smoke a lot.”

القطار يسير بسرعة.

“The train moves fast.”

Two types of nouns: active participle (اسم الفاعل) and the passive participle (اسم المفعول) can be used as adverbs. Because they are nouns, they must be in the accusative case and take (تنوين الفتح) if they are singular or the appropriate suffix for dual and plural; consider the following examples:

خرج الطالب حاملاً حقيبته.

“The student left carrying his bag.”

جلس الرجل مفكِراً في المشكلة.

“The man sat thinking about the problem.”

وجد الشرطي الرجل مقتولاً في الشارع.

“The policeman found the man dead/murdered on the road.”

خرج الطلاب حاملين كتبهم.

“The students left carrying their books.”

It is often possible to express the same meaning using different types of adverbials, e.g.

خرجت من الغرفة سريعاً / بسرعة / مسرعة.

“I left the room quickly.”

There is still more to learn about adverbials in Arabic. Keep following!

Adverbs part1

Posted by aziza No Comments
Sep 6 2009

Adverbs modify verbs. They give extra information about the manner, time, frequency of performing a certain action. Typically, adverbs in Arabic end in (تنوين الفتح), e.g. جداً ، كثيراً ، قليلاً ، دائماً etc.

أدرس كثيراً قبل الامتحان.

“I study a lot before exams.”

لا نأكل كثيراً في الإفطار.

“We do not eat a lot at breakfast.”

تحبين الشيكولاتة جداً.

“You like chocolate a lot.”

There are words that serve mainly as adverbs, e.g.

Very

جداً

Always

دائماً

Usually

عادة

Never

أبداً

Sometimes

أحياناً

Adverbs can be derived from adjectives by adding (تنوين الفتح), e.g. كثيراً is derived from كثير “much”, قليلاً is derived from قليل “little”, سريعاً is derived from سريع “fast”, etc.

أمشي سريعاً لأنني متأخرة.

“I walk fast because I am late.”

أدرس كثيراً وأنام قليلاً بسبب الامتحانات.

“I study a lot and sleep a little because of the exams.”

Adverbs can be derived from nouns, especially those denoting time, e.g. ليلاً is derived from ليل “night”, يومياً “daily” is derived from يوم “day”, أسبوعياً “weekly” is derived from أسبوع “week”, etc.

الخفاش ينام نهاراً ويصحو ليلاً.

“A bat sleeps in the day and wakes at night.”

تصدر المجلة أسبوعياً.

“The magazine appears weekly.”

Adverbs can be expressed in other ways that will be discussed in future posts.

Usage of some particles

Posted by aziza No Comments
Sep 3 2009

I got a query recently about the usage of different particles that are made up of one letter only, e.g. ف، ل، ك، ب. In this post, I give some examples of their different uses. First of all, it should be noted that any particle that is made up of one letter only cannot stand alone, i.e. it must join the word after.

ب

This is a preposition. It means ‘by’ or ‘by means of’

أحب الكتابة بالقلم الرصاص.

“I like to write by pencils.”

سافرنا إلى مصر بالطائرة.

“We travelled to Egypt by airplane”.

ك

This is a preposition, and it is used to express similarity.

سميرة كأختك.

“Samira is like your sister.”

ثوبك أبيض كالثلج.

“Your outfit is as white as snow”.

ل

This is a preposition, and it means ‘to’ or ‘in order to’. It should be noted that when (ل) comes before a noun that begins with (ال), we have to delete the first (ا) of (ال), for example (ل) + (البيت) = (للبيت)

سنذهب للجامعة الآن.

“We will go to university now.”

أدرس كثيراً لأنجح.

“I study a lot in order to succeed”.

ف

This is a connector. It is used to connect 2 sentences that have a cause and effect relationship between them.

كنت جوعانة فأكلت.

“I was hungry, so I ate.”

تعطلت السيارة، فلم نصل إلى الحفل في الموعد.

“The car broke down, so we could not make it on time for the party”.

ف

It can also be used to express sequence. In this way, it is like (ثم), e.g.

وصل أحمد فخالد. = وصل أحمد ثم خالد

“ِAhmed arrived, then Khaled.”

Similarity

Posted by aziza 6 Comments
Sep 1 2009

Following my previous post about comparison, I received a question about how to express similarity in Arabic, and Niji contributed the answer. In this post, I explain more about similarity in Arabic.

There are 2 particles that we can use to express similarity, i.e. (كـ) and (مثل). Both of them mean ‘like’ or ‘as’, and they are used to establish a relationship of similarity between 2 things or people, e.g.

أنت بطئ كالسلحفاة.

“You are slow like a turtle.”

القطار سريع كالريح.

“The train is fast like wind.”

أحمد طبيب مثل والده.

“Ahmed is a physician like his father.”

والدتي صبورة وأنا مثلها.

“My mother is patient, and I am like her.”

Both (كـ) and (مثل) are used in the same way to express similarity between two nouns, and they are in most of the cases interchangeable. The main difference between them is that we can use (مثل) followed by a pronoun or a noun, but (كـ) can only be followed by a noun. For example, only (مثل) can be used in the sentence below.

أنا طالب مثله.

“I am a student like him.”

To negate these statements, i.e. to express ‘not like’, we use (ليس), for example:

محمد ليس طويلاً مثل والده.

“Mohammed is a not tall like his father.”

لست طالبة مثلك.

“I am not a student like you.”

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