Lesson 34 – الدَّرْسُ الرَّابِعُ وَالثَّلاثُونَ

Active and Passive Voiceالفِعْلُ المَبْنِي لِلْمَعْلُومِ وَالفِعْلُ المَبْنِي لِلْمَجْهُولِ

Passive form of present verb tense

  • We are still in lesson thirty four of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • In this part we will study how to change the Arabic present tense verb from the active into the passive voice. If you remember what we did with the Arabic past verb tense, we do the same here with the vowel of the first radical, i.e. changing it into đammah. For the vowel of the pre-final radical, we change it into fatħah, not kasrah as in the case of the past tense verb.
  • In order to change the present tense verb from the active into passive voice, we have to do two things as follows:

1-Change the vowel of the first radical into đammah.
2-Change the vowel of the pre-final radical intro fat
ħah.

  • Study the following examples and notice the highlighted changes of the first and pre-final vowels.

Translation

Transliteration

Verb in the passive voice

Translation

Transliteration

Verb in the active voice

Is written

Yuktabu

يُكْتَبُ

Write

Yaktubu

يَكْتُبُ

Is eaten

Yu’kalu

يُؤْكَلُ

eat

Ya’kulu

يَأْكُلُ

Is drunk

Yushrabu

يُشْرَبُ

Drink

Yashrabu

يَشْرَبُ

Is offered

Yuqaddamu

يُقَدَّمُ

Offer

Yuqaddimu

يُقَدِّمُ

Is tried

Yuħākamu

يُحَاكَمُ

Try

Yuħākimu

يُحَاكِمُ

Is celebrated

Yuħtafalu

يُحْتَفَلُ (بـ)

Celebrate

Yaħtafilu

يَحْتَفِلُ (بـ)

Is accepted

yutaqabbalu

يُتَقَبَّلُ

Accept

Yataqabbalu

يَتَقَبَّلُ

Is extracted

Yustakhraĵu

يُسْتَخْرَجُ

Extract

Yastakhriĵu

يَسْتَخْرِجَ

Is received

yustaqbalu

يُسْتَقْبَلُ

Receive

Yastaqbilu

يَسْتَقْبِلُ

·         View the examples above, most of which were mentioned in Part 5, but here the verbs are in the present tense form. If we study some of the these verbs, for example  the verbs ((يَسْتَقْبِلُ ،يَسْتَخْرِجَ ،يَحْتَفِلُ  we find that the vowel of the initial radical of these verbs is fatħah while the vowel of the pre-final letter is kasrah. In addition, the verbs ( (يَكْتُبُ ، يَأْكُلُ has an initial fatħah vowel and a pre-final đammah vowel.

·         In all the cases above, the verb changes as follows:

-          The vowel of the first radical into đammah.

-          The vowel of the pre-final radical intro fatħah.