Learn how to use the past tense
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hi everyone, and welcome back to ArabicPod101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 25 - Talking About Your Vacation in Arabic. Becky Here. |
| Nora: I'm Nora. |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the past tense. The conversation takes place in a classroom. |
| Nora: It's between Ahmed and John. |
| Becky: The speakers are friends, so they will use informal Standard Arabic. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| أحمد: جون, كيف كانت رحلتك إلى الإسكندرية؟ |
| جون: كانت رائعة. ذهبت إلى الشاطئ و سبحت كثيراً. |
| أحمد: ماذا أيضاً؟ |
| جون: تمشيت على كوبري ستانلي و أكلت سمك على الطريقة الاسكندرانية. |
| أحمد: و كيف كان الجو؟ |
| جون: كان دافئاً و مشمساً. |
| Becky: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| أحمد: جون, كيف كانت رحلتك إلى الإسكندرية؟ |
| جون: كانت رائعة. ذهبت إلى الشاطئ و سبحت كثيراً. |
| أحمد: ماذا أيضاً؟ |
| جون: تمشيت على كوبري ستانلي و أكلت سمك على الطريقة الاسكندرانية. |
| أحمد: و كيف كان الجو؟ |
| جون: كان دافئاً و مشمساً. |
| Becky: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Ahmed: How was your trip to Alexandria, John? |
| John: It was great. I went to the beach and swam a lot. |
| Ahmed: What else? |
| John: I took a stroll on Stanley Bridge and ate fish made in the Alexandrian way. |
| Ahmed: And how was the weather? |
| John: It was warm and sunny. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Nora, in the dialogue they were talking about Alexandria. |
| Nora: Ah yes. It's one of the most beautiful cities in Egypt and in the Middle East in general! |
| Becky: The Middle East has many must-see spots, especially the regions with a very long history like North Africa and the Levantine region. Let’s remind our listeners of the most important ones. |
| Nora: There's the pyramids and the Pharaonic temples and mummies in Egypt, Petra in Jordan, incredible natural scenery and green mountains in summer, ski slopes in winter in Lebanon, and many other beautiful spots. |
| Becky: I would definitely like to go to the area at least once! |
| Nora: I think it's important to be able to speak at least a little Arabic before you go to any part of the Arab world though, to get the full experience. |
| Becky: That's what we're here for! What is the Arabic for “the Pyramids” and “Petra”? |
| Nora: “the Pyramids” is الأهرامات (al ahrāmāt) and “Petra” is called البتراء (al batrā') |
| Becky: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Nora: رائع [natural native speed] |
| Becky: great |
| Nora: رائع[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: رائع [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: سبحت |
| [natural native speed] |
| Becky: I swam |
| Nora: سبحت [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: سبحت [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: تمشيت [natural native speed] |
| Becky: I took a stroll |
| Nora: تمشيت[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: تمشيت [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: كوبري [natural native speed] |
| Becky: bridge |
| Nora: كوبري[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: كوبري [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: سمكة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: fish |
| Nora: سمكة[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: سمكة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: الجو [natural native speed] |
| Becky: the weather |
| Nora: الجو[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: الجو [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: دافئ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: warm |
| Nora: دافئ[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: دافئ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: And lastly.. |
| Nora: مشمس [natural native speed] |
| Becky: sunny |
| Nora: مشمس[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: مشمس [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Nora: كيف كانت (kayfa kānat) |
| Becky: meaning "How was..." |
| Nora: This is a nice and polite way to ask someone about their experience doing something or going somewhere. The first word kayfa means "how," and kanat means "was." You use kanat if the object in question is a feminine noun. Change it to kana for a masculine noun. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Nora: Sure. For example, you can say.. كيف كانت الإجازة؟ (kayfa kānat al-ʾiǧāzah?) |
| Becky: ..which means "How was your holiday?" Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Nora: ماذا أيضاً؟ (māḏā ʾayḍan?) |
| Becky: meaning "What else?" Use this short useful question to get more information about whatever you're asking about. |
| Nora: The first word maza, as you probably already know, means "what," and 'aydan means "also." Altogether, it means "what else?" It doesn't have any other forms. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Nora: Sure. For example, you can say.. أكلت سمك؟ ماذا أيضاً؟ (ʾakalt samak? māḏā ʾayḍan?) |
| Becky: .. which means "You ate fish? What else?" Okay, what's the next word? |
| Nora: الإسكندرانية (al-ʾiskandarāniyyah) |
| Becky: meaning "Alexandrian" |
| Nora: Adding an يَّة (iyyah) for feminine conjugation and ي (iyy) for masculine conjugation gets you the adjective form of a country/region name. This is the nationality form. |
| Becky: As we already said, Alexandria is the name of a coastal city on the Mediterranean sea in Egypt. |
| Nora: Adding another iyyah to al iskandariyyah will end up in a weird double iyyah sound at the end though, and that's why the form changes to al iskandaraniyyah for this word, so it's irregular. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Nora: You can say.. الكبدة الإسكندرانية حارة قليلاً. (al-kibdah al-ʾiskandarāniyyah ḥārrah qalīlan.) |
| Becky: .. which means "Alexandrian liver is a bit spicy." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the past tense. Let’s start by saying that the past tense in Arabic conjugated to the third person is considered to be the dictionary form of a verb in Arabic. |
| Nora: So that's the form you use to look up a certain verb in the dictionary. |
| Becky: And it's the reason learning the Arabic past tense form is very important, because you want to reach a point where you’re able to look up words in the dictionary on your own. This last lesson is dedicated to the past tense and how to form it. |
| Nora: Let’s take a look at the most basic verb in Arabic, the verb “to do,” which is فَعَلَ (fa’ala). This is the dictionary form of this verb, which means that it’s in the third person past tense. |
| Becky: To begin with, let’s see the possible conjugation of this basic and essential verb in the past tense. Nora will say the Arabic and I will follow with the translation. |
| Nora: Let’s start with the first person singular form أنا فَعَلت (ʾanā faʿalt) |
| Becky: “I did” |
| Nora:The second person singular masculine form is أَنتَ فَعَلت (ʾanta faʿalt) and the feminine is أنتِ فَعَلتي (ʾnti faʿaltī) |
| Becky: both meaning “you did” |
| Nora: هُوَ فَعَل (huwa faʿal ) |
| Becky: “he did” |
| Nora: هِيَ فَعَلَت (hiya faʿalat) |
| Becky:”she did” |
| Nora: نَحنُ فَعَلنا (naḥnu faʿalnā ) |
| Becky: “we did” |
| Nora: أَنتُم فَعَلتُم (ʾantum faʿaltum) |
| Becky:”you did” (plural) |
| Nora:* هُم فَعَلوا (hum faʿalū) |
| Becky: “they did”. Now let’s see some examples of past tense verbs from the dialogue. |
| Nora:كانت رائعة. ذهبت إلى الشاطئ و سبحت كثيراً. (kānat rāʾiʿah. ḏahabtu ʾilā al-šāṭiʾ wa sabaḥtu kaṯīran.) |
| Becky: meaning “It was great. I went to the beach and swam a lot.” |
| Nora: Here we have two verbs, ذَهَبَ (ḏahaba) meaning “went,” and سَبَحَ “swam” (sabaha) conjugated in the first person past tense form. The trick here is to replace the three root letters of فَعَلَ with the three root letters of the verb you want to conjugate, then proceed in the same way. |
| Becky: Let’s try to do this together. |
| Nora: Let’s consider the verb ذَهَبَ (ḏahaba) meaning “went.” It consists of three root letters: ذ ه ب. (ḏ h b.). Now let’s replace each of those with the root letters of فَعَلَ, which are ف ع ل f ʿ l |
| Becky: Basically, just take the verb “to do” conjugations as a reference whenever you’re conjugating any other verb. |
| Nora: So if فعل (fa’ala) in the second person masculine past tense is فَعَلتَ (fa’alt), then the second person masculine past tense form of ذهب (ḏahaba) is ذَهَبتَ (ḏahabt). |
| Becky: The challenge here is that there are some irregularities depending on the nature of the root letters of the verb you're using. |
| Nora: Right, For example, if one of the root letters happened to be a vowel, like the verb سار (saar) meaning “to walk,” the rules change slightly, but it also changes for all the verbs that have a vowel in the middle letter of the root letters, like مال , باع , دام (daam - “continue”/baa’ - “sell”/ maal - “incline”) and so on. |
| Becky: Let’s see all the possible conjugations in the past tense for this verb: |
| Nora: Let’s start with the first person singular أنا سِرت (ʾʾanā sert) |
| Becky: “I walked” |
| Nora:The second person singular masculine is أَنتَ سِرت (ʾante sertī) and the feminine is أنتِ سِرتي (antum sertum) |
| Becky: both meaning “You walked” |
| Nora: هُوَ سار (huwa sār) |
| Becky: “he walked” |
| Nora: هِيَ سارَت (heya sārat) |
| Becky: “she walked” |
| Nora: نَحنُ سِرنا (naḥnu sernā) |
| Becky: “we walked” |
| Nora: أَنتُم سِرتُم (ʾantum sertum) |
| Becky: “you walked” plural |
| Nora: هُم ساروا*ا (hum sārū) |
| Becky: “they walked.” Nora, what if the vowel was in the last letter of the root verb? |
| Nora:Let's take the verb دعى (da’aa) meaning “to invite.” It also has an irregular conjugation. |
| Becky: What is the first person singular? |
| Nora: أنا دَعَوْت (ʾanā daʿawt) |
| Becky: which means “I invited.” Listeners, you can find the complete conjugation in the Lesson Notes. |
| Nora: You’ll need to practice to get used to all the forms, but it will save you a lot of time when you encounter new verbs in the future. |
| Becky: Let’s wrap up this lesson, with a couple of sample sentences. |
| Nora: آيَة ذَهَبَت إلى الحَفلَة مَع آشلي. (ʾāyah ḏahabat ʾelā el-ḥaflah maʿ ʾāšlī.) |
| Becky: "Aya went to the party with Ashley." |
| Nora: دَعَوْتُ مُحَمَّد إلى الحَفلَة. (daʿawtu muḥammad ʾelā el-ḥaflah.) |
| Becky: "I invited Mohamed to the party." |
Outro |
| Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson and this series. We hope you enjoyed it and found it useful! Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you in another series. Bye! |
| Nora: إلى اللقاء (ʾilaā al-liqaāʾ) |
| ========= |
| *Note: The ا in the end is a silent letter. |
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