There are many ways to learn modern standard Arabic (MSA). For those who already know the basic grammar of Arabic, they can start learning to read, translate and add new words on daily basis.
The best way to add more new words are by reading the Arab news written in Arabic.
From now on I’m going to post news in Arabic with its translation in English and Bahasa Indonesia to help you know modern standard Arabic with ease. The latest update can be found here.
Index
- How to Practice and Memorize New Words in Verbal Sentences
- New Arabic Words for Beginner
- How to Add New Words for Advanced Learner
- Basic Arabic Grammar
How to Practice and Memorize New Words in Verbal Sentences
A verbal sentence الْجُمْلَةُ الْفِعْلِيَّةُis a sentence that starts with the verb and the subject follows. The subject can be a noun, a pronoun, a demonstrative, or a relative clause.
The defining property of a verbal sentence is that the verb precedes the subject. There are more than one possibility for verbal sentences in the presence of an object, an adverb, a prepositional phrase, etc.
Practice every new word in complete verbal sentences in three types of phrases as follows (to be continued):
You may start learning Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) from zero, you would better read and memorize some daily basic Arabic expression.
How to Add New Words for Advanced Learner
You may add new words by reading regularly some Arabic news written by the native speakers. Some good websites are as follows:
aljazeera.net
alarabiya.net
For those English speaker who do not know the basic grammar of Arabic, you must learn it first. And the best book for this is Kitab Al-Ajurumiyah written by Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Ajurum, hence the book title. Fortunately, Shaikh Hamza Yusuf has translated it into English with good explanation for English speaker whhich I post it here.
BASIC ARABIC GRAMMAR IN ENGLISH: TRANSLATION OF AL-AJURUMIYA
Name of book: Matn Al-Ajurumiyah (متن الأجرومية)
Author: Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Ajurum
Arabic version: Download here.
Translated into English by: Shaikh Hamza Yusuf of Zaituna College, USA.
CHAPTER 1: THE SPEECH
Speech must have utterance: it must be compounded by and it must be meaningful in its sintactical sequence[1]. It consists of only three parts: the noun (إسم), the verb (فعل), and the particle (حرف) which has signification. The noun is known as khafd, by tanwin, and by the addition of the article of definition. The particles of khafd are as follows: min مِنْ, ila إِلَى, an عْن, ala عَلَى, fi فِي, rubba رَّب, ba الْباءُ, kaf الْكَافُ, lam اللَّامُ,
Add to those the particles of adjuration (حُرُوفُ اَلْقَسَمِ): waw اَلْوَاُو, ba الْباءُ, ta التاَّءُ.
The verb is know by sin السِّينِ, sawfa سْوفَ, qad قَدْ, and the quiescent (ت) of the feminine gender (َتَاءِ اَلتَّأِْنيثِاَلَّساكِنةَ).
The particle (الحرف) is which neither the sings for the noun nor the verb applies.
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[1] Bilwada’ also means that speech must be made up of words that are used by the Arabs for their respective meanings. The first meaning is the one chosen by Murabit Al-Hajj in Dalil at-Tullab; the second is preferred by Kafrawi in his commentary on the Ajrumiyya.
CHAPTER 2: INFLECTION AND ITS PART
Inflection (الأعراب) is the change of the last syllable of words based on the various agents of inflection that govern them either explicitly or implicitly. The parts of inflections are only four: raf’, nasb, khafd, and jazm. Of these the first three belong to nouns without any jazm. Raf’, nasb, and jazm are peculiar to verbs (which have no khafd).
CHAPTER 3: KNOWLEDGE OF THE SIGNS OF INFLECTION
Raf’ has four signs:
1. Dammah (ضمة)
2. Waw (واو)
3. Alif (ألف)
4. Nun (نون)
Dammah is the sign of raf’ in four instances:
1. The singular noun (الإسم المفرد)
2. The broken plural (جمع التكسير)
3. The sound feminine plural (جمع المؤنث السالم)
4. The verb in the imperfect free of agents and having nothing at its termination [such as the feminin nun or the nun of confirmation). (الفعل المضارع)
As for waw, it is a sign of the raf’ in two instances only:
1. In the sound masculine plural (جمع المذكر السالم)
2. In the five names (الأسماء الخمسة)
ِAs for the alif it is a sign of raf’ only in dual.
The nun is a sign of raf’ in the imperfect verb if it is succeeded by pronoun of the dual, or the pronoun of the plural or the pronound of the second person feminine:
يَفْعَلَانِ، وَتَفْعَلَانِ، وَيَفْعَلُونَ، وَتَفْعَلُونَ، وَتَفْعَلِينَ
The nasb has five signs:
1. Fatha (فتحة)
2. Alif (ألف)
3. Kasrah (كسرة)
4. Ya (باء)
5. The omission of the nun at the end of the word. (حذف النون)
Fathah is a sign of nasb in three instances:
1. The singular nound (الإسم المفرد)
2. The broken plural (جمع التكسير)
3. The verb in the imperfect that is governt by an agent of nasb and having nothing termination (الفعل المضارع إذا دخل عليه ناصب ولم يتصل بأخره شيئ)
Alif is a sign of nasb in five nouns for example
رَأَيْتُ أَبَاكَ وَأَخَاك
As for kasrah it is a sign of the nasb in the sound feminine plural (حمع المؤنث السالم)
As for ya it is a sign of nasb in the dual and plural (التثية والجمع)
As for the omission of the nun, it is a sign of nasb in verbs whose raf’ is determined by the nun.
As for khafd it has three signs:
1. Kasrah (كسرة)
2. Ya (ياء)
3. Fathah (فتحة)
Kasrah is the sign of khafd in three instances:
1. The singular noun that is fully declinable (الإسم المفرد المنصرف)
2. The broken plural that is fully declinable (جمع التكسير المنصرف)
3. Sound feminine plural noun (جمع المؤنث السالم)
Ya is the sign of khafd in three instances also:
1. In the five nouns (الأسماء الخمسة)
2. In the dual (التثنية)
3. In the plural (الجمع)
As for the fathah, it is a sign of khafd in a noun that is not fully declinable.
Jazm has two signs it is known by:
1. Sukun (سكون)
2. Omission (حذف)
As for sukun, it is a sign of jazm in the imperfect verbs whose ending is regular. Omission is a sign of the jazm in verbs whose ending is irregular and in the five names whose sign of raf’ is determined by nun.
CHAPTER 4: INFLECTED WORDS
Inflected words are of two types: those that are inflected with vowel markings and those inflected with letters.
As for those words that are inflectd with vowel markings, they are of four types:
1. The singular noun (الإسم المفرد)
2. The broken plural (جمع التكسير)
3. The sound feminine plural (جمع المؤنث السالم)
4. The verb in the imperfect whose ending is sound and nothing is attached to its ending (الفعل المضارع الذي لم يتصل بأخره شيئ)
All of these are signified in the raf’ by dammah, the nasb by fathah, the khafd by kasrah, and the jazm by sukun. To these there are three exceptions:
1. The sound feminine plural, which in nasb has kasrah.
2. The nound that is not decliend, which in khafd has fathah.
3. The verb in the imperfect, irregular in the last syllable, which is jazmated by the omission of the final syllable.
As for the words that are inflected with letters, they are four:
1. The dual (التثنية)
2. The sound masculine plural (جمع المذكر السالم)
3. The five nouns (الأسماء الخمسة)
4. The five verb forms (الأفعال الخمسة – يَفْعَلَانِ، وَتَفْعَلَانِ، وَيَفْعَلُونَ، وَتَفْعَلُونَ، وَتَفْعَلِينَ)
As for the dual it takes raf’ with alif. It takes the nasb and the khafd with ya.
As for the fine nouns, they are in raf’ with waw, nasb with alif, and khafd with ya. As for the five verbs, they are in raf’ with nun and in nasb and jazm with the omission of nun.
CHAPTER 5: VERBS
There are three verb tenses
1. Perfect (al-madhi)
2. Imperfect (al-mudhari’)
3. Imperative (al-amr)
Example:
ضَرَبَ – يَضْرِبُ – اِضْرِبْ
The perfect always has a fathah in the last syllable (unless it has the waw of plurality or a pronoun of rafa’ that has a vowel mark). The imperative is always with jazm. The imperfect verb is one that always commences with one of four letters that are contained in the technical word (أنَيْتُ). Moreover, it is always in rafa’ unless an agent of nasb or jazm precedes it. The agent of nasb are ten. They are:
أَنْ، وََلنْ، وَإِذَنْ، وَكَيْ، وََلاُمَ كْي، وَلَامُ اَلْجحُُودِ، وَحَتىَّ،َ والََْجوابُ بِالْفَاءِ، وَالَْواوِ،وََأْو.
The agent of jazm are eighteen. They are:
لم،ْ وَلمََّا، وَأَلمَ،ْ وَأَلمََّا، وَلَُامَ الْأمَْرِ وَالدُّعَاءِ،َ و ( لَا)ِ فيَ النَّهِْيَ والدُّعَاءِ، وَإنِْ ، وَمَا ، وََمْن ، وََمْهَما ، وَإِذْمَا ، وأي ، وَمَتَى، وََأْينَ ، وََأَّيانَ، وَأَنَّى، وَحَيْثمَُا، وََكْيفَمَا، وَإِذا فِي اَلشِّعْرِ خَاصَّةٌ.
Chapter 6: Nouns in Rafa’
The marfu’ats are only seven in number and they are as follows:
1. The subject-doer – الفاعل
2. The object whose subject-doer is not named – نائب الفاعل
3. The subject of a sentence which begins with a noun – المبتدأ
4. The predicate of a subject of a noun sentence – الخبر
5. The subject of the predicate kana and its analogous verbs – اسم كان وأخواتها
6. The predicate of inna and its analogous particles – خبر إن واخواتها
7. The word in opposition to a rafa’ated noun, which are four:
— 1. Adjectives – نعت
— 2. Conjuctives – عطف
— 3. Corroboratives – توكيد
— 4. Permutatives – البدل
Chapter 7: Subject-doer
The subject-doer is a noun in the rafa’ whose action is previously mentioned, it is of two types:
1. When the subject-doer is explicit – ظَاهِر
2. When the subject-doer is implicit and contained in the verb itself – مُضْمَر
The explicit subject is expressed for example in the following statements:
قَامَ زَيْدٌ, وَيَقُومُ زَيْدٌ, وَقَامَ الزَّيْدَانِ, وَيَقُومُ الزَّيْدَانِ, وَقَامَ الزَّيْدُونَ, وَيَقُومُ الزَّيْدُونَ, وَقَامَ اَلرِّجَالُ, وَيَقُومُ اَلرِّجَالُ, وَقَامَتْ هِنْدٌ, وَتَقُومُ هِنْدٌ, وَقَامَتْ الْهِنْدَانِ, وَتَقُومُ الْهِنْدَانِ, وَقَامَتْ الْهِنْدَاتُ, وَتَقُومُ الْهِنْدَاتُ, وَقَامَتْ اَلْهُنُودُ, وَتَقُومُ اَلْهُنُودُ, وَقَامَ أَخُوكَ, وَيَقُومُ أَخُوكَ, وَقَامَ غُلَامِي, وَيَقُومُ غُلَامِي, وَمَا أَشْبَهَ ذَلِكَ.
There are only twelve implicit subject, expressed in the following statements:
ضَرَبْتُ, وَضَرَبْنَا, وَضَرَبْتَ, وَضَرَبْتِ, وَضَرَبْتُمَا, وَضَرَبْتُمْ, وَضَرَبْتُنَّ, وَضَرَبَ, وَضَرَبَتْ, وَضَرَبَا, وَضَرَبُوا, وضربن