The Focus Of This Lesson Is an Overview of Arabic Sentence Structure and an Introduction to all the Following Lessons in This Series

في هذه السلسلة, سوف نتعلم أساسيات تكوين الجملة العربية وأقسام الجملة الأساسية في اللغة العربية.

fī haḏihi al-silsilah, sawfa nataʿallam ʾasāsiyyāt takwīn al-ǧumlaẗi al-ʿarabiyyaẗi ūʾaqsāmi al-ǧumlah al-ʾasāsiyyah fī al-lluġah al-ʿarabiyyah.
"In this series, we will learn the basics of Standard Arabic sentence formation and the basic parts of speech of Arabic language."

1. Vowelling

In this first lesson, we will give you an introduction to the grammar we are covering in this series, and explain a very crucial part of Arabic, which is vowelling.

Vowelling is the reason non-native Arabic speakers find it difficult to read Arabic. Because native Arabic speakers know how every word is pronounced already, they can read Arabic even if it isn't vowelled, which is actually usually the case. The only vowelled text Arabic native speakers read is probably the Quran.

This is an example of unvowelled text:

هبة ذهبت إلى المدرسة.

"Heba went to school."

If you look at this text, you will notice that there are many consonants in a row in each word. Theoretically, it should be pronounced like this:

hba zhbt ila 'lmdrsh.

Of course that's not how it's pronounced. It's just that the hidden vowelling gives a sentence its necessary short vowels.

هِبَة ذَهَبَت إلى المَدرَسَة.

Notice the vowelling. Each sign on top of or at the bottom of the sentence indicates a certain short vowel that separates each consonant from the following one. So in reality, that's how this text is pronounced:

heba zahabat ila 'al madrasah.

Does that mean that Arabic has no vowels aside from the vowelling signs? Of course not. Arabic has three vowel sounds, but they are long vowels, and can sometimes be used as consonants, such as when they are the first letter in a word.

There are three main long vowels in Arabic:

1-ا

2-و

3-ي

So the difference between short vowels and long vowels is basically in the length of the vowel. Notice the difference in pronunciation between the two following words:

bal بَل  meaning "but," or "instead"

baal بال meaning "mind"

You give 1 count for the short vowel, versus 2 counts for the long vowel.

There are two uses for vowelling as far as Arabic speakers are concerned:

1: Initial-medial letter vowelling

This is the vowelling of the initial and medial letters of a word. This vowelling determines the MEANING of the word.

2: Final letter vowelling

This is the vowelling of the final letter of a word. This vowelling determines the position of the word in the sentence. From now on, we will call this type "final vowelling." It can only be one of four signs:

fathah (an a sound as in "sad") بَ

kasrah (an i sound as in "hill") بِ

dammah (an u sound as in "parachute") بُ

sukuun (a sign that indicates that there is no vowelling sound for a letter) بْ

Final vowelling is dropped (not pronounced) only if the word in question is the last word in a sentence, or if the word is said independently (not in a sentence, just on its own).

So what can you do as a non-native? You have to learn the most common forms of words in Arabic; because more than 99% of words in Arabic-verbs or nouns or adjectives-follow certain forms, that can be formed and recognized easily if you follow a set of rules. For example, you can read a lot, until you get used to the these common forms. Until then, use vowelled text to help you read and pronounce each word correctly. Of course, all our content has a vowelled version for your convenience.

Now that we know the difference, in this series we will be focusing on number 2, which is the final letter vowelling in most of the lessons, but we will also introduce some of the most common vowelling patterns in the most used Arabic parts of speech (POS).

2. Sentence Order and Its Significance in a Lecture

Listening to a lecture involves a lot of listening skills. It's a lot of input and you are likely to hear a lot of words you don't understand and sentences that might seem inverted. Inverted sentences are commonly used in lectures, because the teacher or the presenter is trying to highlight a certain part of the sentence that isn't usually found in the beginning of a sentence.

In Arabic, the only indicator for the importance of a certain part of a sentence is sentence order. This means that if a part of a sentence comes first in the sentence order, that indicates that this part is the more important part of the sentence, and the main focus of this sentence. Let's see examples of this in the dialogue:

في هذه السلسلة, سوف نتعلم أساسيات تكوين الجملة العربية.

fi hazihi al silsila, sawfa nata'allamu asaasiyyaat takwiin aljumla al 'arabiyyah.
"In this series, we will learn the basics of the Arabic sentence formation."

In the normal sentence order, the verb sentence  سوف نتعلم, usually come first in a complex sentence. However, if we want to highlight or stress a certain part of the sentence that happens not to be a noun/verb sentence, which in this case is في هذه السلسلة , we can put it in the beginning of the sentence and move the noun/verb part to be the second part in the sentence. It's a lot like English, really. That's also the case in:

في نهاية هذه الدروس, ستكون قادراً على تكوين جمل طويلة.

fi nihaayati hazihi al duruus, satakuunu qaadiran 'ala takwwini jumalin taweelah.
"By the end of this series, you will be able to form long sentences."

We did the same thing here. In this sentence, the time of the action is the focus of the sentence, that's why it came first in sentence order.

In addition, in many noun sentences, the order of the subject and the object can also be switched! Imagine a sentence saying "Happy John is." instead of "John is happy."

The reason this shift in order is possible in Arabic, although it doesn't have subject/object markers, is the final letter vowelling we were just talking about. The final vowelling can tell you what the position of a word is in a sentence even if the sentence order was inverted. This is widely used in literary works to stress certain parts or to rhyme sentences.

Last but not least, here's a list of the grammar points we will be introducing in the next 24 lessons:

Examples from the dialogue:

في نهاية هذه الدروس, ستكون قادراً على تكوين جمل طويلة و متقدمة باللغة العربية الفصحى.

fī nihāyaẗi haḏihi al-durūs, satakūnu qādiran ʿalā takwīni ǧumalin ṭawīlaẗin wa mutaqaddimah billuġah al-ʿarabiyyah al-fuṣḥā.
"At the end of these lessons, you will be able to form long and advanced sentences in Modern Standard Arabic."

Sample Sentences

في هَذا البَيْت, الكُلُّ حُرٌّ في حَيَاتِه.

fī haḏā al-bayt, al-kullu ḥurrun fī ḥayaātih.
"In this house, each person is free to live their own life."

أَستَمِعُ إلى أَرابيكبود101 عَلى اللآي فون الخاص بي.

ʾastamiʿu ʾilā ʾarābīkbūd101 ʿalā al-lʾāī fūn al-ḫāṣ bī.
"I listen to ArabicPod101 on my Iphone."

في نهاية

في نِهايَةِ

fī nihāyaẗi
"At the end of"

This expression consists of 2 words: fi, literally meaning "in," and nihayat, meaning "the end."

This expression has to be followed by a noun so that it would mean: "In the end of..."

For example:

في نهاية المحاضرة, سألت الأستاذ سؤالاً.

في نِهايَةِ المُحاضَرَة, سَأَلتُ الأُستاذَ سُؤالاً.

fī nihāyaẗi al-muḥāḍarah, saʾaltu al-ʾustāḏa suʾual-an.
"At the end of the lecture, I asked the professor a question."

قادر على

قادِر عَلى

qādir ʿalā
"able to"

This expression consists of 2 words: qaadir, which is an adjective meaning "able" and ala, which is a preposition meaning "to."

Note that this expression has fewer usages than "can" استطيع. It is used with more important abilities and privileges. So it translates better to "able to."

For example:

أنا قادر على الوصول إلى حل.

أَنا قادِرٌ عَلى الوُصولِ إلى حَلّ.

ʾanā qādirun ʿalā al-wuṣūli ʾilā ḥall.
"I'm able to reach a solution."

One Region, Many Dialects: The Dialects of Arabic and their Relation to MSA

The different dialects of Arabic might sound intimidating at first, but you have to be able to speak Modern Standard Arabic plus one dialect, preferably a widely understood dialect like Egyptian or Levantine, to be able to live comfortably in the Arab world. Modern Standard Arabic will help you understand the road and train signs, as well as news on TV and in the newspapers, because all of that is in Modern Standard Arabic regardless of the country you're in. It's hard to say what the closest dialect to Standard Arabic is, but many agree it's either the Gulf dialects like Saudi, or Levantine dialects, like Syrian.

Useful expression:

اللَهجَة الشامِيَّة

"Levantine dialect"

اللَهجَة المِصرِيَّة

"Egyptian dialect"