When you start to learn a language, especially if you are studying Arabic for beginners, do not just start by studying individual words.

 

Native Arabic speakers did not learn Arabic by remembering single words; they learned phrases. Learning with phrases is faster than studying individual words. Students who learn phrases also have much better grammar.

 

But now what should I do?

 

When you learn a new word, try to put this word in a phrase, or even better, a simple sentence.

 

Why?

 

Because, long sentences (infested with grammatical rules) may also be infested with errors, and this will not help you! Now, let us learn how to put words into context using some simple sentence patterns in Arabic:

 

Subject and Predicate

 

The Subject المُبْتَدَأ

 

The subject is what the sentence is talking about. It could be a noun like:

 

The book الكِتَابُ 

Cairo القَاهِرَة 

Ahmed أَحْمَد

 

or a personal pronoun like:

 

I أَنَـا 

he هُوَ 

they نَحْنُ

 

or a demonstrative pronoun like:

This (masculine) هَذَا 

This (feminine) هَذِهِ

 

The Predicate الخبر

 

The predicate tells us something about the subject. The Arabic word خَبَر means a piece of news, so you can think of the predicate الخبر as delivering news about the subject. It may be an adjective (happy سَعِيدٌ ), verb (eat يَأْكُلُ ), or noun (student طَالِبٌ ) or prepositional phrase (on the desk عَلَى المَكْتَب ).

 

An adjective is a word that describes a noun. Here are some examples of adjectives: smart ذَكِي pretty جَمِيل good جَيِّد , etc.

 

The predicate الخبر in Arabic may be one word or may be more than one word.

 

Examples of the predicate الخبر when it is one word:

 

( مُبْتَدَأ [subject] ) + (خبر [predicate])

 

 

مُبْتَدَأ [subject]

 خبر [predicate]

الكِتَابُ The book

 جَدِيدٌ is new

 

The book is new. 

الكِتَابُ جَدِيدٌ

 

Cairo is beautiful.

القاهِرَةُ جَمِيلَة

 

Ahmed is smart.

أحْمَدٌ ذَكِيٌ

 

I'm hungry.

أنا جَائِعٌ

 

This is a house هَذَا بَيْتٌ

   

 

When the predicate الخَبر when it is more than one word:

The predicate can also consist of a preposition (حَرْفُ جَر) or adverbs (ظَرْف), etc.

 

Prepositions حَرْفُ جَر

 

A preposition حَرْفُ جَر (ḥarf jar) comes before a noun and always places the noun into the genitive case مجرور (majrūr). The preposition may be an individual word, or it can be a preposition prefixed to a noun as part of the same word.

 

The same thing is true for adverbs (ظَرْف) of place like: inside داخِل– outside خَارِج- in front of أمام behind خَلْف under تَحْت above فوق

 

This is often an answer to questions using: where …?… أينَ

 

For example:

 

Where is the book? أينَ الكِتَابُ؟

 

The book (is) on the desk. الكِتَابُ عَلَى المَكْتَبِ

 

Sentence Structure:

 

( اسم [noun] ) + ( حرف جر [preposition] + اسم [noun] )

 

 

مُبْتَدَأ [subject]

 خبر [predicate]

 

 اسم [noun]

 حرف جر [preposition]

 اسم [noun]

 الكِتَابُ

 The book 

 على

 on

 المكتَب

 the desk

 

الكِتَابُ عَلَى المَكْتَبِ The book (is) on the desk.

 

الطَّالِبُ فِي المَدْرَسَةِ The student (is) in the school. 

 

الشَّجَرَةُ أمَامَ البَيْتِ The tree (is) in front of the house.

 

القَلَمُ دَاخِلُ الحَقِيبَةِ The pen (is) inside the bag.

  

 

These were some models of sentence structures in Arabic, and I will try to provide other models in future italki articles.

 

The important thing now that you begin writing sentences like these models. You can send them to me on italki to discuss it together, put it in a comment below this article, or discuss it with your Arabic teacher on italki.

 

Hero Image by xlibber (CC BY 2.0)