could u tell me why do u want to learn arabic language?????
www.italki.com/groups/3637/topic/31780.htm</a>
<ol> <li><em>Phonetic spelling</em></li> </ol>
ONE APPROACH is to take Arabic words as they are pronounced and write down approximately similar sounds in the Roman alphabet. This is what early European travellers to the Middle East usually did, and the results were often bizarre or, in some cases, almost unrecognisable.
Inexact spellings such as "Mecca" and "Koran" entered the English language a long time ago and have become so entrenched that they are now difficult to eradicate. In old books the Prophet's name is frequently spelled as "Mahomet" and this is still used to some extent today. There is no logical reason for it because Muhammad is one Arabic name that can easily be rendered in a way that is both phonetically accurate and faithful to its written form.
The Roman alphabet, of course, is used by a number of European languages, so phonetic representations of Arabic words vary according to the mother tongue of the writer. Romanised spellings adopted by Arabs themselves often reflect previous colonial influences: an Arab in a country with strong English influence might spell his surname as "Shaheen", while a cousin in a French-influenced country would spell it as "Chahine". In both cases, the original Arabic name is the same.
A further consideration is that there are also significant regional variations in pronunciation by Arabs. So a single Arabic word, spoken by a Moroccan, and Egyptian and a Saudi could easily appear as three different words if written phonetically in the Roman alphabet.
The spellings of Arabic words found in the western mass media are often at least partly phonetic but rarely do justice to the original.
In some circumstances, more precise phonetic spelling is needed - in phrase books for tourists, for instance, or in pronunciation guides for broadcasters. The following examples come from a guide issued by Associated Press to help American radio stations with their pronunciation:
<blockquote>mah-MOOD' ah-BAHS' (Mahmoud Abbas)
mah-MOOD' ab-DEHL'-BA'-set (Mahmoud Abdel-Baset)
shayk OH'-mahr AHB'-dehl RAHK'-mahn (Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman)
</blockquote>This is not only thoroughly unscientific but highly inaccurate. The guide happily inserts various sounds that don't exist in the original Arabic (a K in "Rahman", for example) and ignores several others that do exist. It also offers two different pronunciations of "Abdel-", for no logical reason.
Truly phonetic spelling follows the <a href="http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipachart.html">International Phonetic Alphabet</a> which is used academically by linguists. Its disadvantage in general use is that it requires characters outside the normal alphabet and is therefore more or less incomprehensible to non-specialists.
<em>Transcription (Romanisation)</em>
A DIFFERENT approach is to start with Arabic words in their written form and transcribe (or "Romanise") them by replacing individual Arabic letters with corresponding letters from the Roman alphabet. This sounds simple but is actually very difficult. For example:
<ul> <li>Only eight Arabic letters have a clear equivalent in the Roman alphabet: B, F, K, L, M, N, R, and Z.
</li> <li>Arabic has two distinct consonants that approximate to the sound of S. The same applies to D, H and T.
</li> <li>There are two glottal sounds that do not obviously correspond to any Roman letter.
</li> </ul><a name="standards">The ideal </a> solution would be to have a standard, internationally agreed, system. Several have been proposed but unfortunately none has been universally accepted. A selection of these can be viewed in PDF format at <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/sirbinks/pdf/Arabic.pdf">http://homepage.mac.com/sirbinks/pdf/Arabic.pdf</a>.
Probably the earliest attempt at standardisation was Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft proposal, adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in 1936. It is the system used in the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879500034/yemengateway">Hans Wehr Arabic dictionary</a>. Another standard was agreed in 1971 at a conference of Arab experts in Beirut and - theoretically, at least, accepted by the countries of the Arab League. It has met some resistance, particularly in those Arab countries where French predominates over English. Other transcription/Romanisation systems include:
ALA-LC Romanization Tables
Adopted by the US Library of Congress and the American Library Association for cataloguing books, the system has found its way into wider academic use. It covers a multitude of languages: there are 54 Romanisation tables for more than 150 languages and dialects written in non-Roman scripts. The table relating to Arabic may be viewed in PDF format at the following sites:
<a href="http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/lcromanization.pdf">http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/lcromanization.pdf</a>
<a href="http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/mdh/lcromanization.pdf">http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/mdh/lcromanization.pdf</a>
<a href="http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf">http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf</a>
Alternatively, a complete set of the tables may be purchased from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0844409405/yemengateway">amazon.com</a>
ISO 233
Published by the International Standards Organisation. Copies may be purchased <a href="http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=4117">here</a>.
British Standard BS 4280: 1968
Not widely used - which is hardly surprising since the <a href="http://www.bsi.org.uk/">British Standards Institute</a> holds the copyright (it cannot be reproduced here) and copies are expensive to buy (about $39 for an eight-page document).
United Nations Romanization System for Geographical Names
Overseen by the Group of Experts on Geographical Names (<a href="http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/">UNGEGN</a>), this aims to promote "consistent use of accurate place names" on maps and similar products. Work on the project has been continuing since 1972. A progress report on Arabic romanization, dated March 2000
THERE is a lot of disagreement in the English-language media about how to spell Arabic words and names in the Roman alphabet. Apart from variations in the spellings adopted by individual newspapers, magazines and news agencies, many of these organisations have no clear guidelines or fail to follow them consistently.
With increasing use of electronic archives, the spelling variations can make it almost impossible to retrieve all relevant articles with a reasonable degree of certainty.
Variations in spelling can also confuse readers, as well as journalists themselves, and leave them wondering whether two (or more) apparently different names refer to the same person.
The two existing standards that seem most relevant to journalism are the ALA-LC and UN guidelines (see above). Both are very similar but in some instances they resort to special characters that are impractical for media usage and would also baffle readers.
The romanisation scheme suggested below is a simplified version of the ALA-LC and UN guidelines which eliminates the need for special characters. It is proposed here for the purposes of discussion and readers’ <a href="http://www.al-bab.com/arab/contact.htm">comments</a> are welcome.
SUGGESTED ROMANISATION FOR MEDIA USAGE </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" border="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="43%" valign="top">
alif
ba
ta
tha
jim
ha
kha
dal
dhal
ra
zay
sin
shin
sad
dad
</td> <td width="57%" valign="top">a
b
t
th
j
h
kh
d
dh
r
z
s
sh
s
d
</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" border="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="36%" valign="top">tah
zah
ayn
ghayn
fa
qaf
kaf
lam
mim
nun
ha
waw
ya
</td> <td width="64%" valign="top">t
z
‘ (alt+ 0145)
gh
f
q
k
l
m
n
h
w*
y*
</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2">* when waw or ya is used as a consonant
</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table>NOTES:
Short vowels: u, a, i (e and o are unnecessary).
Long vowels: uu; aa; ii. The principle of doubling a short “a” to make a long “aa” is well established (e.g. "salaam"). Logically, it could be applied to the other vowels. Some may prefer "oo" to "uu", but "ou" could be mis-promounced as "ow". Again, "ee" may be preferred to "ii".
Diphthongs: aw, ay. Some may prefer "au" and "ai".
Doubled consonants: normally write as double; omit in the case of digraphs (gh, th, etc) for visual reasons. Doubling is not always obvious from the written Arabic; omit if uncertain.
Digraphs: to avoid ambiguity, two-letter combinations which are not digraphs but resemble them should ideally be separated by ´ (ctrl+ ', space). Example: ad´ham.
Definite article: al- (no assimilation with "sun" letters, e.g. "al-shams" not "ash-shams").
Capitalisation: capitalisation of "bin" in Arabic names would logically follow in-house capitalisation rules for "von" (German) or "du" (French). Logically, "abu" and "abd al-" require the same treatment as "bin".
ta marbouta: the options currently in use are: a, at, ah, eh, et. Readers' views on the acceptability or otherwise of these options are welcome.
jim: in a colloquial context, g can replace j where that is the normal pronunciation.
qaf: in a colloquial context, g can replace q where that is the normal pronunciation
hamzah: may be omitted at beginning of word; elsewhere use apostrophe ’ (alt+ 0146).
The point of setting a standard is to apply it universally, or at least to make as few exceptions as possible. However, this is difficult to achieve with Arabic words because so many mis-transliterations have entered common usage. It is suggested that the guidelines may be waived in the following circumstances:
1. Names, where a person or organisation has clearly indicated a preferred spelling.
2. Places, where a particular spelling has been adopted locally.
3. Religious terms, where a particular spelling has been adopted locally by believers.
4. Colloquial terms and expressions may be spelled phonetically.
Introduction
THE WRITING of Arabic words in English texts presents a number of difficulties, even for those who are familiar with both languages.
In 1926, when T E Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") sent his 130,000-word manuscript of Revolt in the Desert to be typeset, a sharp-eyed proof-reader spotted that it was "full of inconsistencies in the spelling of proper names".
Among other things, the proof-reader noted that "Jeddah" alternated with "Jidda" throughout the book, while a man whose name began as Sherif Abd el Mayin later became el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin and le Muyein.
Lawrence refused to change the spellings.
"Arabic names," he replied, "won't go into English, exactly, for their consonants are not the same as ours, and their vowels, like ours, vary from district to district."
Such inconsistencies may not matter much in a literary work but in many other situations they do matter. For instance, if you wanted to look up an Arab called "Hassan al-Ghobashy" in the telephone directory, he might be listed under A, E or G:
<blockquote>AL-GHOBASHY Hassan
EL-GHOBASHY Hassan
GHOBASHY Hassan al-
Difficulties arise whenever Arabic names are listed alphabetically using the Roman alphabet, and when they are used in databases or search engines. Efforts by the FBI to track down Usama bin Laden's supporters, for instance, were severely hampered by this problem.
Newspapers spell the Libyan leader's name in a variety of ways, with the result that a researcher trying to find articles about him would be likely to miss a significant number of them. According to one website, there are <a target="_self" href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8744/spelling.htm">32 possible ways</a> to spell his name.
There is no ideal, all-purpose solution. There are, however, several different approaches to a solution and the best choice depends largely on the writer's purpose and intended audience.
The following notes are an attempt to explain the issues involved. They should be considered as "work in progress"
If you are a new learner who just want to experience or get comfortable with an Arabic keyboard, either use <a href="http://arabic.speak7.com/arabic_keyboard.html">Arabic Keyboard</a>, because it's ready to use and has some friendly buttons and translations. If you are an Arabic native or reached a level where you can type in Arabic without a problem then you might want to install Arabic on your computer.
To set up Arabic under Windows XP, select Start | Settings | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options. Click the Languages tab at the top; check the box which allows you to "Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai)”, Apply, then click on Details... under Text services and input languages. When the window appears, click Add... next to Installed services and select Arabic (Egypt) and Arabic (101) as your Keyboard layout/IME. Click OK, Apply, Ok and you're done.
To set up Arabic under Windows Vista, select Start (or windows logo) | Settings | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options. Choose "Keyboards and Languages" at the top, click on the button "Change Keyboards", then "Add", scroll to where Arabic is, you might want to choose "Arabic (Egypt)" for example, make sure you click on the + icon before the word "Arabic (Egypt)”, once you do, you will see "keyboard" click on the + icon placed before it. Check the box for “Arabic (101)”. Click "Ok", then "Apply" and finally "Ok", and that's it.
Tips you need to know
Once Arabic is installed, you will be able to type messages in Arabic or in English, to do so let's say you were typing an e-mail in English and you decided to type the rest in Arabic, just press and hold "Shift" button on your keyboard and press "Alt", and that will switch to "Ar", then you can do the same thing again (Shift + Alt) to swtich back to English. Good luck!
How do I change the display language?
If your browser doesn't support Arabic or when you visit a website in Arabic it shows you just some weird signs and symbols, then you need to adjust your browser which can be done easily in order to display that page properly.
Go to the top of your browser where you have "File" "Edit" "View”.... Select "View", then "Encoding" then "Arabic Windows" and that should do it, if the problem still exists, then that means the problem is not your browser, but on the page you're trying to view.
In this lesson we will learn how to deal with Arabic nouns, especially how to form the feminine from the masculine, than how to form the plural from a singular, once you learn how to do it, you will also be able to form them vice versa easily.
Masculine to Feminine in Arabic:
To form a feminine word from the masculine in Arabic, you simply add “taa’ marbuta” which looks like (ة) or ( ـة ) depending on the word it’s connected to. Usually for animals, humans and professions… for example:
kalbكلب (dog masculine) è kalba كلبة(dog feminine)
tefl طفل (child masculine) è tefla طفلة (child feminine)
mohandes مهندس (engineer masculine) è mohandesa مهندسة(engineer feminine)
It’s possible also for most adjectives & some other nouns:
Sadeeq صديق (friend masculine) è Sadeeqa صديقة (friend feminine)
Hazeen حزين (sad masculine) è hazeena حزينة (sad feminine)
Kabeer كبير (big masculine) è kabeera كبيرة (big feminine)
However not all animals or humans masculines can take a “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة in their feminine form, for example:
Asad أسد (lion) è Labo’a لبؤة(lioness)
But
Walad ولد (boy) è Bent بنت (girl)
In Arabic, words are either masculine or feminine, so anything you may think of should take either feminine or masculine form, now you can recognize if a word is feminine or masculine by its ending, for example:
Qessa قصة (story (is feminine because as you may have noticed it has “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة at the end of the word, similar are:
Shajara شجرة (tree), Saheefa صحيفة (newspaper), Kora كرة (ball), Ghorfa غرفة (room), Bohaira بحيرة (lake) … and therefore the adjective following these feminine words should also take the feminine form (add a “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة to them)
Most Arabic nouns are considered masculine if no “taa’ marbuta” is connected to them, however like any other language there are exceptions:
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none;" class="MsoTableGrid"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="590" valign="top" style="width: 6.15in; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">
Arabic Nouns
</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="590" valign="top" style="width: 6.15in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">Sky سماء samaa’ is feminine even if there is no “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة at the end of the word,
Windريح reeh is feminine even if it’s not ending with a “taa’ marbuta”.
Also some masculine proper names are ending with “taa’ marbuta” but still considered masculine name for example: osama أسامة , hamza حمزة.
The good news is that they are not many, and the general rule is “add a “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة to form the feminine from a masculine word, and omit it to form the masculine”.
<center>If you are looking for a more extensive Arabic course, we recommend <a href="http://wmmedia.breakcode.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SPEAK">Breaking The Arabic Code</a></center>
Singular to Plural in Arabic:
In Arabic to form the plural we use two methods: add a suffix or change the body of the word (to form an irregular plural).
A suffix (aatات ) is added to form a plural usually when a word ends with a “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة, but before adding the suffix we first have to omit the existing ((ة, ــة :
For example:
Shajara شجرة (a tree) è Shajaraat شجرات (trees). So the body here is shajar شجر to form the feminine we add to it “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة, to form the plural we add the suffix “aat ات ” as you can see in the example above.
We can also add the suffix (aatات ) even to words not ending with “taa’ marbuta” ((ة, ــة, for example:
Qitar قطار (train) è Qitaraat قطارات (trains)
Mashroob مشروب (drink) è Mashroobaat مشروبات(drinks)
Another suffix (een ين ) is added to form the plural of some words (especially nationalities, religions, professions…)
Amreki أمريكي (American) è amrekieen أمريكيين(Americans)
Moslem مسلم (Moslem) è Moslemeen مسلمين (Moslems)
Motarjem مترجم (translator) è Motarjemeen مترجمين (translators)
Now we will move to the irregular forms, you will notice that there are many of them, so it’s advised to learn words with their plurals, and most dictionaries write the definition of words with their plural form, and it’s not that hard as it seems, with practice all ambiguities will be clear.
The table below shows most of forms that a plural can take in Arabic, the words with question marks are our model words, and to convert a word the irregular way you first need to: remove the question mark and add a consonant for each question mark, for example the word “book” means ketaab كتاب in Arabic, to form the plural I wrote in the table below how to form it by showing you the form with question marks (?u?u?), meaning ketaab è ?u?u? è kutub. If you remove the consonant of the word ketaab respectively and put them in our model word, you will have kutub, which is obviously the plural of ketaab (book), same thing with other examples below:
<table width="827" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1" style="width: 620.6pt; border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none;" class="MsoTableGrid"> <tbody> <tr style="height: 16.6pt;"> <td width="827" valign="top" style="width: 620.6pt; border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;" colspan="4">
Arabic Plural
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 16.6pt;"> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">?u?uu? فعول
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">a??aa? أفعال
</td> <td width="204" valign="top" style="width: 153pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">a??u? أفعل (rare)
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">?u?a? فُعَل
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 63.4pt;"> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 63.4pt;">Saqr è Suquur (falcons)
صقر è صقور
Dars è Duruus (lessons)
درس è دروس
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 63.4pt;">Nahr è Anhaar (rivers)
نهر è أنهار
Haram è Ahraam (pyramids)
هرم è أهرام
</td> <td width="204" valign="top" style="width: 153pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 63.4pt;">Wajh è Awjuh (methods)
وجه è أوجه
Shahr è Ash-hur (months)
شهر è أشهر
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 63.4pt;">qubla è qubal (kisses)
قبلة è قبل
dawla è duwal (countries)
دولة è دول
</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">?a?a?e?a فعاعلة
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">??a?e? فعاعل
</td> <td width="204" valign="top" style="width: 153pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">?u?u? فُعُل
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt;">?u?aa?a فعالا
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 54.4pt;"> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 54.4pt;">jabbaar è jababera (tyrants)
جبّار è جبابرة
usquf è asaaqefa (bishops)
أُسقف è أساقفة
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 54.4pt;">madrasa è madares (schools)
مدرسة è مدارس
markab è marakeb (boats)
مركب è مراكب
</td> <td width="204" valign="top" style="width: 153pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 54.4pt;">ketaab è kotob (books)
كتاب è كتب
safeena è sufun (ships)
سفينة è سفن
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 54.4pt;">Wasiya è Wasaaya (wills)
وصية è وصايا
Hadiya è hadaaya (gifts)
هدية è هدايا
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 16.6pt;"> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">?a?aa’e? فعائل
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">a??e?a أفعلة
</td> <td width="204" valign="top" style="width: 153pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">?u??aa? * فُعَال (rare)
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 16.6pt;">?u?a?aa’ فعلاء
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 81.85pt;"> <td width="227" valign="top" style="width: 170.6pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt; border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 81.85pt;">Qaseeda è qasaa’ed (poems)
قصيدة è قصائد
Hazeema è hazaa’em (losses)
هزيمة è هزائم
</td> <td width="216" valign="top" style="width: 2.25in; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 81.85pt;">Ghelaaf è aghlefa (covers)
غلاف è أغلفة
Hezaam è ahzema (belts)
حزام è أحزمة
Nasek è Nussak (pious)
ناسك è نُسّاك
Tajer è Tujjar (merchant)
تاجر è تُجّار
* the second consonant is doubled
</td> <td width="180" valign="top" style="width: 135pt; border-width: medium 1pt 1pt medium; border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; padding: 0in 5.4pt; height: 81.85pt;">Sajeen è sujanaa’ (prisoners)
سجين è سجناء
Jabaan è jubanaa’ (cowards)
جبان è جبناء
</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>
There are some other forms of forming the plural in Arabic, but they are very rare, so you don’t have to worry about them right now.
You can pause the video any time and reply any part you like or didn't hear well. For the table below I used the blue font in some places in transliteration to distinguish between the female and male gender. Which is not that different from the masculine form, just an extra “i” or “a” …
The tick (‘) is for a sound like soundless “a” or a stop just to make closer to the real sound which doesn’t exist in English. You will be able to hear it many time in the video.
The “th” is sometimes pronounced as “th of that” and sometimes as “th of think”, I usually state how you should pronounce it.
There is a sharp “h” that is different from the regular “h”, however a person can be understood even if it’s pronounced as a regular “h”.
The video below contains the same text as the table below it, however the video contains audio as well, so that you will be able to hear the words and see how they're written.
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