Learn how to form plurals in Modern Standard Arabic
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Intro |
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| Michael: How are plurals formed in Modern Standard Arabic? |
| Nora: And what is a broken plural? |
| Michael: At ArabicPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben and his neighbor, Rami, are talking about pets. Ben says, |
| "My family likes cats." |
| .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Michael: "My family likes cats." |
| Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| Michael: "And my family likes dogs." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, you'll learn how to form plural nouns in Modern Standard Arabic. You'll also learn how to recognize a broken plural. First off the easiest way to recognize regular plural form is when you see a familiar masculine noun like: |
| Nora: لاعِب (lāʿib) |
| Michael: meaning "player," with the suffix |
| Nora: ون (ūn) |
| Michael: or |
| Nora: ين (īn) |
| Michael: connected to the end. The plural form is: |
| Nora: لاعِبون (lāʿibūn) |
| Michael: meaning "players." On the other hand, if you find a familiar feminine noun like: |
| Nora: آنِسَة (ʾānisah) |
| Michael: meaning "lady," with the suffix |
| Nora: ـات (āt) |
| Michael: connected to the end of the noun, then that is a regular feminine plural. In this case, |
| Nora: آنِسات (ʾānisāt) |
| Michael: meaning "ladies." But what about other irregular plural forms? We will discuss that at length in this lesson! Let's start by taking a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Ben says,"My family likes cats?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nora as Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Michael: Here, we have our first plural noun |
| Nora: قِطَط (qiṭaṭ) |
| Michael: meaning "cats." In this case, the singular form is |
| Nora: قط (qiṭ) |
| Michael: meaning "cat." If you are familiar with regular plural forms, you will notice that this doesn’t follow either the regular masculine or even feminine form. In this broken plural form, we duplicated the final sound in the singular form to create the plural form. In Arabic, broken plurals are called |
| Nora: جَمع تَكسير (ǧamʿ taksīr) |
| Michael: while regular masculine plural form is called |
| Nora: جَمع مُذَكَّر سالِم (ǧamʿ muḏakkar salim) |
| Michael: Finally, the regular feminine plural form is called |
| Nora: جَمع مُؤَنَّث سالِم (ǧamʿ muʾannaṯ sal-im) |
| Michael: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Rami Radi says, "And my family likes dogs?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nora as Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| Michael: The plural form of dog is |
| Nora: كِلاب (kilāb) |
| Michael: meaning "dogs." Here, we have another broken plural form. The singular form would be |
| Nora: كَلب (kalb) |
| Michael: meaning "dog." In this form, we changed the vowelling on the first letter into a |
| Nora: كَسرَة (kasrah) |
| Michael: then we add an |
| Nora: أَلِف (alif) |
| Michael: after the second letter. As you can probably tell, this broken plural pattern is different from the previous one. Why are cats and dogs treated differently? This has nothing to do with the innate properties of cats and dogs. It has to do, however, with the singular form of the noun—more precisely, the number of letters, the vowelling signs, the number of vowels, and their placement. A word with a |
| Nora: فَتحَة (fatḥah) |
| Micahel: on its first letter, like |
| Nora:كَلب (kalb) |
| Michael: which means "dog," is very likely to have a plural form different from a noun with a |
| Nora: كَسرَة (kasrah) |
| Micahel: on its first letter, like |
| Nora: قِط (qiṭ) |
| Michael: meaning "cat." Broken plurals are a challenge for beginner learners because it pretty much depends on exposure to as many different patterns as possible. With time and experience, you start noticing the common patterns, and do what is called "measuring," or in Arabic |
| Nora: القِياس (al-qiyās). |
| Michael: "Measuring" is how grammarians decided on these forms and patterns in the first place, and so language learners rely on this method as well to decide how a noun’s plural form is going to look. For reference, let’s look at two nouns that have similar "measure," or |
| Nora:وَزن (wazn) |
| Michael: The first word is |
| Nora: اِسم (ism) |
| Michael: meaning "name," and the second word is |
| Nora: اِبن (ibn) |
| Michael: meaning "son." Respectively, their broken plural forms are |
| Nora: أَسماء، أَبناء (ʾasmāʾ, ʾabnāʾ) |
| Michael: Note how they follow the same form in their singular as well as their plural forms. On the other hand, with broken plurals, sometimes there are nouns that wouldn’t follow the same plural pattern as their measure buddies. The noun "dog" is actually one of those exceptions. Let’s take a noun with the same measure as dog, like |
| Nora: دَرس (dars) |
| Michael: meaning "lesson." The plural form is |
| Nora: دُروس (durūs) |
| Michael: meaning "lessons." As you can see, the singular form of these two nouns follow the same measure, but their plural forms don’t. The good news is that this only happens with a few nouns that just happen to sound better and are easier to pronounce in that unique irregular way, or at least that’s what the grammarians think! |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that broken plural is a common form of plural in Arabic and, contrary to the name "broken," they actually follow specific measures and when you memorize the common patterns, measuring and predicting the correct plural form becomes an easier task with time and experience. |
| Review |
| Michael: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after the native speaker, focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Beb says "My family likes cats?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Nora as Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Nora as Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Nora as Ben Lee: .عائِلَتي تُحِبُّ القِطَط (ʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-qiṭaṭ.) |
| Michael: And do you remember how Rami says "And my family likes dogs?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Nora as Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Nora as Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Nora as Rami Radi: .وعائِلَتي تُحِبُّ الكِلاب (waʿāʾilatī tuḥibbu al-kilāb.) |
| Expansion |
| Michael: In spoken Arabic dialects, like Egyptian Arabic, even borrowed words from other languages are made to abide with broken plural measures! It’s not a complete fit because these words have a different etymology from Arabic words, but Arabic speaking people find a way to create plural forms for even non-Arabic words! A very common non-Arabic noun is |
| Nora: أوضَة (ʾoḍah) |
| Michael: which is a Turkish word used to mean "room" in Egyptian Arabic. How would you think the plural form would be? Egyptians use the broken plural form |
| Nora: إوَض (ʾewaḍ) |
| Michael: to mean "rooms." Try to be creative and try different plural forms and don’t hesitate to ask your Arabic speaking friends for why they use the broken plural forms they use. It should make for a fun conversation! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Nora: !سلام (Salām!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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