Lesson 12 - الدَّرْسُ الثَّانِيَ عَشَرَ

Continued

  • We are still in lesson twelve of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • In this part of the lesson we will learn the conversion of the Arabic masculine verb to the feminine verb In-Shā’-Allâh.
  • For the past tense of a verb i.e. الْفِعْلُ الْمَاضِي the following rules are applied

English

الْفِعْلُ الْمَاضِي

He went

هُوَ ذَهَبَ

الْفِعْلُ الْمُذَّكَرُ

Masculine Verb

She went

هِيَ ذَهَبَتْ

الْفِعْلُ الْمُؤَنَّثُ

Feminine Verb

You (masculine) went

أَنْتَ ذَهَبْتَ

الْفِعْلُ الْمُذَّكَرُ

Masculine Verb

You (feminine) went

أَنْتِ ذَهَبْتِ

الْفِعْلُ الْمُؤَنَّثُ

Feminine Verb

  • When a masculine noun is changed to a feminine for the pronoun (e.g. from 'he' to 'she' in the example above), a letter 'ta’' with a sukūn is added at the end of the verb that follows i.e., ذَهَبَ will be changed to ذَهَبَتْ.
  • However, when the noun is a subject following a verb, and that noun is definite with the article (al) (e.g. the girl) then instead of a 'ta’ with a sukūn a 'ta' with the genitive case (kasrah) is added to the verb i.e., the verb will be ذَهَبَتِ الْبِنْتُ instead of ذَهَبَتْ الْبِنْتُ.
  • Let’s take some examples to better understand the rule:

English

Arabic Sentence

Gender of Verb

Ahmad went to the house

ذَهَبَ أَحْمَدُ إِلَى الْبَيْتِ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

Fatima went to the house

ذَهَبَتْ فَاطِمَةُ إِلَى الْبَيْتِ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ

The young man went out of the class

خَرَجَ الْفَتَى مِنَ الْفَصْلِ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

The young lady went out of the class

خَرَجَتِ الْفَتَاةُ مِنَ الْفَصْلِ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ

You (masculine) sat on a chair

جَلَسْتَ عَلَى كُرْسِيٍّ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

You (feminine) sat on a chair

جَلَسْتِ عَلَى كُرْسِيٍّ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ

The male teacher stood in front of the black board

وَقَفَ الْمُدَرِّسُ أَمَامَ السَّبُّورَةِ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

The lady teacher stood in front of the black board

وَقَفَتِ الْمُدَرِّسَةُ أَمَامَ السَّبُّورَةِ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ

The father opened the door

فَتَحَ الأَبُ الْبَابَ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

The mother opened the door

فَتَحَتِ الأُمُّ الْبَابَ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ

The male student read the lesson

دَرَسَ الطَّالِبُ الدَّرْسَ.

الْمُذَكَّرُ

The female student read the lesson

دَرَسَتِ الطَّالِبَةُ الدَّرْسَ.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ