Let's just try to understand what it's all about. Of course Arabic grammar is not too simple, but in essence there are less exceptions and irregularities than say French.
Arabic divides all words into:
verbs :fe3l, af3aal(pl.).
Just verbs as in English. A verb has only two forms: perfect and imperfect.
From these forms we can obtain all tenses (see later). The bad news is
that verbs are conjugated according to the number and gender of the subject.
nouns :esm, asma'(pl.).
nouns have a gender: either male or female (no neuter). They are also
classified by number, Arabic has single, plural, and dual (two is a special
case, not plural).
operators :Harf, Horoof(pl.).
All prepositions and grammatical tools that are neither nouns or verbs.
Arabic has no verb to be! Instead Arabic has a peculiar property. Some
sentences can be correctly formed without using a verb! These sentences
are called nominative sentences. For example when we say:
al-bent gamilah
the girl beautifull
we mean the girl is beautifull.
It might be confusing at first but it's actually easy.
Another use for nominative sentences is to indicate ownership (to have),
e.g.
al-walad laho ketab
the boy to him a book
note in the above sentence that the "a" is not written when we write
the singular form of a noun we imply the "a", so ketab = a book. Also "la"
means to "ho" means him (look later).
In all other cases we use sentences with verbs. The word order can
be VSO or SVO, the former is more archaic though. For example:
zhahaba al-walad ila al-madrasah
went the boy to the school
can also be written:
al-walad zhahaba ila al-madrasah
the boy went to the school
Which is probably more comfortable to English speakers.
Word derivation from roots:
All Semitic languages have a common property, they derive all their
vocabulary from a set of consonant-only roots. By adding vowels and maybe
some more consonants they obtain verbs and nouns and great changes in meaning.
Most Semitic roots are triconsonantal, i.e. they have only three letters.
A few have four letters and even fewer have five but the rule is they are
triconsonantal.
The above becomes clearer with an example. Following the tradition of
egyptian high schools I will use the root f3l as an example. f3l gives
the idea of "doing", let's see what we can derive from it.
One of the first and easiest applications is the derivation of a perfect
verb for the singular masculine. To do this add a fat7ah after every letter
to give: fa3ala = he did.
The second derivation is the singular masculine imperfect verb. Add
a yeh & a fat7ah to the beginning, a fat7ah after the first letter,
and a Dammah to the end. The result is yaf3alu (he is doing).
The act of performing the verb can now be derived. Add a kasrah, sokoon,
& aleph+tanween fat7ah; after each letter respectively. The result
is fe3lan (a deed).
Someone who performs the verb is derived by adding an aleph, kasrah,
and sokun respectively. Thus fa3el is someone who does, a doer.
Now memorise the following sequence: fa3ala, yaf3alu, fe3lan, fahuwa
fa3el.
fahuwa means: so he is. If we translate the sequence we get:
He did, he is doing a deed thus he is a doer.
Now check this out. If we pick out a non-queer root like ktb (the idea
of writing) and furnish it with the same sounds as above we get the sequence:
kataba, yaktubu, ketaban, fahuwa kateb.
He wrote, he writes, a book thus he is a writer.
or drs (the idea of studying)
darasa, yadrusu, derasatan, fahuwa dares
he studied, he studies, a curriculum, thus he is a student.
Is it that simple? Of course not! One of the first problem appeared
above, why did we say derasatan and not derasan? Because the noun from
this root is female (derasah) so it ends in a teh marbootah which when
connected properly to the tanween becomes a teh.
Note also that many other words can be derived from these roots and
the meaning is often not very intuitive. For example from ktb we can derive
maktab (office or desk), what is the female of this? It is maktabah, which
means library and which makes little sense.
Some of the other forms that can be derived:
maktab (a desk, an office): name of place-male.
maktabah (a library): name of place-female (note how gender changes
meaning).
maktoob (a written thing): name of an object-male.
kattab (a professional writer, author, etc.): name of exaggeration.
The process of derivation and special cases can go on and on and on, so Arabic is much easier to learn by practice than by strict rules. This is the only way you will be able to acquire new words. That's no different from other languages.
A very important and very easy lesson is learning how to conjugate according to number and gender. As we said earlier Arabic has two genders, well not quite! Nouns in Arabic are classified as: proper male, proper female, and broken nouns. Broken nouns maybe seen as the neuter in German except they are not. Whether a noun is broken or not depends not on whether or not it is sexless but on how it's plural form is written. Gender in Arabic (as in all other languages) may not make sense at all, I mean why is a flower and a tree female?
Proper male names include all Arabic names, many Persian ones, and lots
of plants and animals. Similarly Arabic female names are proper female,
some plants, animals and objects are also female. With animals and plants
in particular it is possible to derive a female name from the male name
with some changes. Improper names include most foreign person names as
well as many objects.
Later on I will list some examples on how to distinguish these classes.
What really matters from the above classification is how the noun is
modified for plural and binary. The following is a sketchy outline:-
Plural
Proper male; Add waw-noon to the end (if they are the subject).
Add ya'-noon to the end (if object).
Proper female; Add an aleph and a ta', the last vowel is defined by
position
in the sentence.
improper; case by case
Binary
Add aleph-noon for most cases.
Examples:
type singular binary plural meaning
proper male Hamed Hamedan Hamedoon thanker-thankers
proper female Hamedah Hamedataan Hamedaat thanker-thankers
proper female qa'elah qa'elataan qa'elaat sayer-sayers
improper hendy hendeyyaan honood indian-indians
The most interesting example is the second line where the female form
is obtained from the male form by adding an 'h'. This is easy until we
reach the binary form at which point we meet the metamorphosis of 'h' into
't'.
Verbs are also modified by gender and number considerations as usual
I will use the basic root f-3-l to show how this is done.
Perfect:
singular male: fa3ala.
binary male: fa3alaa.
plural male: fa3alooaa (pronounce fa3aloo).
singular female: fa3alat.
binary female: fa3alataa.
plural female: fa3alna.
Imperfect:
singular male: yaf3alu.
binary male: yaf3alaan.
plural male: yaf3aloon.
singular female: taf3alu.
binary female: taf3alaan.
plural female: taf3alna.
Accusative (command):
singular male: ef3al.
binary male: ef3alaa.
plural male: ef3alooaa (pronounce ef3aloo).
singular female: ef3aly.
binary female: as in male (not sure yet, sorry!).
plural female: ef3alna.
Now I would like to mention some prepositions and tools
used in Arabic. I thought a table would be good:
TOOL MEANING
elae to (I'm going to school)
men from
3alae on
fy (fee) in
w (wa,we) and
l- (le) to
b- (be) with/in
f- (fa) so, thus
Some other helpful words:
anaa me, I
anta you-male singular.
anti you-female singular.
naHnu we.
homma they-male.
homaa binary they.
honna they-female.
huwa he.
hiya she.
ha'olaa' those.
hazhaa this-male.
hazhihi this-female.
Now that you know some basics it is probably time to consider some longer
sentences. The sentence will be analysed and the crucial end vowels explained.
In each case I will include the transliteration, the meaning and English
meanings of words in Arabic order, and finally the breack down.
ex1: aHmadu zhahaba elae al-madrasati.
Ahmad went to the school.
Ahmad went to school.
aHmad: a name; subject, ends in a dhammah.
zhahaba: went; singular perfect male verb, ends in a fat-Hah.
elae: to; a tool.
almadrasati: the school; a name after a proposition ends in a kasrah.
ex2: al-bentu gameelatu.
The girl beautiful.
The girl is beautiful.
albentu: the girl; a nominal sentence beginner, ends in dhammah.
gameelatu: beatiful; the perfecter of the sentence, ends in dhammah.
ex3- al-awlad yal3aboon b-hazhihi al-al3aab al-gameelah kolla yawm.
The boys play
with this the games the beautiful
every day.
The boys plays with these beautiful
games every day.
breakdown too advanced!.
ex4:babu al-Hadeeqah maftooH l-gamee3 al-ashxass b-gamee3 al-ayyaam.
door the garden
open to every the person in all
the days.
The door of the garden is open all days
to everyone.
breackdown too advanced.