Lesson 23 - اَلدَّرْسُ الثَّالِثُ وَالْعِشْرُونَ

Arabic Nouns and Their Types – اَلاسْمُ وَأَنْوَاعُهُ

Introduction – مُقَدِّمَةٌ

• This is lesson twenty three of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
• Please note that in addition to the language, we will also cover several Islamic phrases and terms in this lesson to benefit our Muslim students.  We would request that our students who are not Muslim also be patient while we cover these phrases and we invite them to use this as an opportunity to learn about Islam which is a key part of Arab culture.
• In Arabic a meaningful word is divided into three categories namely Noun اَلاسْمُ, Verb اَلْفِعْلُ and Particle اَلْحَرْفُ. In this lesson we will In-Shā’-Allâh learn the noun and its types i.e., اَلاسْمُ وَأَنْوَاعُهُ but first of all let us define the noun:
• "A word that names a person, place, or thing, as in "Khalid", "museum" or "book".
• Definiteness and Indefiniteness ("The" and "a"):
• In this lesson we will In-Shā’-Allâh learn the definite and indefinite nouns and their types. A noun is either definite i.e. الْمَعْرِفَةُ or indefinite i.e., اَلنَّكِرَةُ.   An indefinite noun can be defined as "The name of an unspecific person, place or thing" e.g., a man رَجُلٌ, a book كِتَابٌ, a city مَدِينَةٌ, and a cow بَقَرَةٌ.   A definite noun can be defined as "The name of a specific person, place or thing" e.g., Muhammad مُحَمَّدٌ, Makkah مَكَّةُ, or Black-Stone اَلْحَجَرُ الأَسْوَدُ.
• Gender and Number:
• A noun can be categorized into two categories with respect to its gender i.e.: Masculine اَلْمُذَكَّرُ and feminine اَلْمُؤَنَّثُ.
• Unlike English nouns, Arabic nouns can be categorized into three categories with respect to number i.e., Singular الْمُفْرَدُ, Dual الْمُثنَّى and Plural اَلْجَمْعُ.
• In the previous lessons we have studied these categories but in the next lessons we will learn about them in more detail, In-Shā’-Allâh (God Willing).
• There are very specific rules for definite and indefinite nouns in the Arabic language - we will learn these later In-Shā’-Allâh (God Willing)
• A definite Arabic noun has six types namely:
• Proper Noun اَلْعَلَمُ,
• Pronouns اَلضَّمَائِرُ, already partially covered in (Lesson 4 & Lesson 10, Lesson 14, Lesson 15, Lesson 16, Lesson 18)
• Demonstrative Pronouns أَسْمَاءُ الإِشَارَةِ, already learnt in (Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 6, Lesson 7, Lesson 13, & Lesson 18)
• Relative Pronouns اَلأَسْمَاءُ الْمَوْصُولَةُ, (Lesson 9, Lesson12)
• Definite due to the definite article مُعَرَّفٌ بِـأَلْ, already discussed in detail in (Lesson 3 & Lesson 7) and
• Annexed to a definite noun اَلْمُضَافُ إِلَى مَعْرِفَةٍ already learnt in detail in (Lesson 5)