Lesson 31 – الدَّرْسُ الحادِي والثَّلاثُونَ

Verb in the Affirmative and the Negative Formالفِعْلُ المُثْبَتُ وَالْفِعْلُ المَنْفِيُّ

Introduction - مُقَدِّمَةٌ

  • This is lesson thirty one of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • In previous lessons we discussed the types of verbs in Arabic (based on structure), that is the past, present and imperative. We also discussed the Arabic verb tenses (based on time): the past, present and future.
  • In this lesson we will discuss another topic related to the verb: making verbs negative. We shall learn how to form the negative for the past, present and future tenses In-Shā’-Allâh (God-willing).
  • This lesson explains how to make the present verb negative and the particles used to do this.  We shall learn the particles used to make various tenses, either past, present or future negative. Note below, there is also an example of how the use of a particle (لَمْ ) can change the present tense verb to a past tense meaning. 

    See the following examples relating to the present / future tense:

Verb tense

Type of verb

Particle

Sentence

Future

Present

لَنْ

Lan

أخِي لَنْ يُسَافِرَ مَعَنا غَدًا

My brother will not travel with us tomorrow

Future

Present

لا

La

فَهُوَ لا يُحِبُّ السَّفَرَ دَائِمًا

As he does not like traveling on a permanent basis

Past

Present

لَمْ

Lam

وهوَ لَمْ يُسَافِرْ إلى أي بَلَدٍ مِنْ قَبْلُ

And he has not traveled to any country yet

  • We shall also study the particles used in making the past verb negative.

Verb tense

Type of verb

Particle

Sentence

Past

Past

ما

ما اِسْتَيْقَظَ أَبِي مُبَكِّرًا؛ لِأَنَّهُ ما نَامَ مُبَكِّرًا

My father did not wake up early because he had not slept early.

Past

Past

ما

ما كَتَبْتُ وَاجِبِي أَمْسِ

I did not do my homework yesterday

  • We shall also study another particle used in the negative: ‘laysa ليس’ (not to be) which is used to make the nominal sentence negative.

Particle

Sentence

لَيْسَ

لَيْسَ البَحْرُ أكْبَرَ مِنَ المُحِيطِ

The sea is not bigger than the ocean

لَيْسَ

ولَيْسَتِ البُحَيْرَةُ أَكْبَرَ مِنَ البَحْرِ

And the lake is not bigger than the sea