• In this lesson we will learn Insha Allah (God Willing) about some of the prepositions.  A preposition is a word which shows the relation of one word to another.  For example, "....the key is in the car...." or "....the book is on the table....".
   

• Some of the most common prepositions are:

• We will also learn about the rule applied for the use of prepositions in Arabic Language. The following rules are applied for the use of prepositions:

1.  A preposition ("حرف الْجر" - called harf ul jar in Arabic) is a single letter or a word which connects two nouns, or a verb and a noun to form a sentence.  As above this is generally showing the position of one word to another. It always precedes a word and never follows the word.

2.  A preposition always comes before a noun and it does not come before a verb.

3.  The noun following a preposition is changed from nominative case to the genitive case.  This means that the last letter of the word will be changed from a dammah or dammatain to a kasra or kasratain.

4.  The noun followed by a preposition is called Majroor " مَجْرُور" which means the preposition has caused a change in its case (from nominative to genitive case) as mentioned in the previous rule.

Let us look at an example‌ ‍‌‌(please read from left to right):

We can see here that the preposition has caused the last letter of   to change to  تِ تُ
 

5.  When a proposition precedes an indefinite noun (e.g. "a house"), the noun is affected in the same way.  As we learnt earlier, a noun which is indefinite takes two dammahs (dammatain) - it is also in the nominative case.   The two dammahs change to two kasrahs (kasratain) when a preposition comes before the noun .  Let us examine the example as above with relation to an indefinite noun:

• Some more examples can be found below.

Phrase without preposition:	Phrase with preposition:	Picture:
مَطْبَخٌ	فِي مَطْبَخٍ
A Kitchen	In a kitchen
مَسْجِدٌ	إلى مَسْجِدٍ
The Mosque	To the mosque
بَيْتٌ	مِنْ بَيْتٍ
A house	From a house
كِتَابٌ	عَلى كِتَابٍ
A book	On a book

• In this part of the lesson we will study some practical sentences using the prepositions and understand the rules relating to prepositions.

• In Arabic language when it is required to make a noun definite, ال is added to that noun. You have also learnt in the previous lessons about the solar and the lunar letters.
  
  However when a preposition comes before a definite word the alif - i.e. "a" sound - of ال is dropped and hence not pronounced. Please note that the "a" of "al" is pronounced only when it is not preceded by any other word but when "al" is preceded by any word the letter "a" is dropped and hence not pronounced.
  
  So we will read the sentence as Fil Baitee and not Fee Al baitee but this rule is applicable in reading only and not while writing the sentence - i.e. the alif will still be written but not pronounced in spoken language.    
   

• Please click on the words or pictures to hear speech, i.e. how the words should be pronounced.

Picture:	Translation:	Transliteration	Arabic:
	The moon is in the sky	Alhalalu fis Sama-i	الهَلالُ فِي السَّمَاءِ
	To the door.	Ilal babi	إلى البابِ
	From the teacher	Minal muddarisi	مِن الْمُدَّرِسِ
	The key is on the book	Almiftahu Alal kitabi	المِفتاحُ على الْكِتَابِ

We shall continue with some more practical sentences, please make an effort to memorise the words and common sentence structures. 

Please click on the words or pictures to hear speech.

Picture:	Translation:	Arabic:
	A horse in the farm.	حِصَانٌ فِي الْحَقَلِ
	The man is from India.	اَلْرَّجُلُ مِنْ الْهِنْدِ
	The lion is on a rock.	الأسدُ عَلى صَخْرٍ
	The boy is in the garden.	اَلْوَلَدُ فِي البُسْتَانِ

In the next part of the lesson we will go over some interrogative expressions (i.e. expressions used for asking questions) covering the areas you have learnt in this lesson Insha Allah..