Lesson 17 - الدَّرْسُ السَّابِعَ عَشَرَ

Continued

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  • In this section we will learn about a new form of Arabic nouns In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing).
  • In Arabic, nouns are divided in two categories that do not exist in the English Language. In Arabic nouns are either Rational or Irrational.
  • In the singular form there is no difference between these two groups, however, there is a very important difference in the plural form of these two groups. The plurals of Rational Nouns are treated as Plural, whereas the plurals of irrational nouns are treated as feminine singular.  This concept takes some practice to understand and we will cover some examples below In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing):
  • Below we can see how the pronouns that relate to the singular rational nouns are changed in plural form, e.g. /Hādhā/ هَذَا (this) becomes هَؤُلاءِ (these) in plural form.
  • We can compare this to the plural of Irrational Nouns.  We can see below that despite the nouns being plural, the pronouns that relate to these nouns are singular feminine - this does not change the plural word itself, only how the plural is treated and includes adjectives - i.e. an adjective following an irrational noun will be feminine singular:
  • Let’s look at some examples to understand this rule further:

English

Arabic

This is a new student, he is from Belgium

هَذَا طَالِبٌ جَدِيدٌ، هُوَ مِنْ بَلْجِيكَا.

الْمُفْرَدُ

These are new students, they are from Belgium

هَؤُلاءِ طُلابٌ جُدُدٌ، هُمْ مِنْ بَلْجِيكَا.

الْجَمْعُ

This is a new book, it is from Belgium

هَذَا كِتَابٌ جَدِيدٌ، هُوَ مِنْ بَلْجِيكَا.

الْمُفْرَدُ

These are new books, they are from Belgium

هَذِهِ كُتُبٌ جَدِيدَةٌ، هِيَ مِنْ بَلْجِيكَا.

الْجَمْعُ