Lesson 29 – الدَّرْسُ التَّاسِعُ وَالْعِشْرُونَ

Tenses of the Verb (Past, Present and Future)- زَمَن الفِعْل  (الماضي ،وَالْمُضارِع ،والمُسْتَقْبَل)

Characteristics of the Present Verb - خصائص الفعل المضارع

  • We are still in lesson twenty nine of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • We have learned the forms taken by the past and present tense verbs as well as the way the future tense is written – i.e. expressed by a present verb preceded by particles (sa- سـ or sawfa سوف).
  • In this part we will discuss the present verb in more detail because the present verb in Arabic has many various characteristics, including:
    • It indicates an action being performed at the time of speaking or a future event, that is the present verb can express the present time (as we have already explained in Part 2 of this lesson).
    • It can also express future events. If it is preceded by ((أن, the meaning of the verb indicates the future. For example:

أُريدُ أن أذْهَبَ إلى مِصْرَ في العامِ القادِمِ

I want to go to Egypt next year

    • Also, if the present verb is preceded by إن (conditional if) - through which we understand that there is a hope that the action may happen in the future – the verb also indicates the future - as in the example below.

إنْ ذاكرَ مُحَمَّدٌ يَنْجَحْ

If Muhammad studies, he (will) succeed.

    • لن (lan) negates the present verb (as we are going to study in the next lesson). If the present verb is preceded by (لن), it indicates the future, and this is why we added the word (tomorrow غَداً) in the sentence.

لَن أَذهَبَ إلى المَدْرَسَةِ غّداً

I will not go to school tomorrow.