Got some unfinished business to talk about?
Well, you’ve come to the right place because today Kaleela’s going to teach you a little bit about the Present Tense in Arabic.
You see, in Arabic, the Present Tense is used to express both habitual and ongoing actions. For example, right now you’re learning Arabic, and assuming you haven’t mastered it, learning Arabic is an ongoing action for you. Thus, in Arabic you would use the present tense to say that:
أَنا أَتَعَلَّمُ العَرَبِيَّةَ
/’anaa ’ata‘allamu il‘arabiyyah/
I learn Arabic.
With that being said, let’s get started on today’s lesson so we can talk about that unfinished business and move on to learning even more Arabic.
Just like in the Arabic Past Tense that we’ve recently talked about, the Present Tense in Arabic also relies on the conjugation of verbs. (Again, conjugation is just a fancy way of saying that you have to add letters to the root verb to make agree with other words in the sentence.)
To form the present tense in Arabic, a prefix has to be attached to the root verb, as in:
نَحْنُ نَذهَبُ
/naHnu naTHhabu/
We go.
To conjugate in the 1st person in the Arabic present tense, use the prefix (آ), as in:
أَنا أفْعَلُ
/’anaa ’af‘alu/
I do.
In the 1st person plural, the prefix (نـ) is used. For example:
نَحْنُ نَفْعَلُ
/naHnu naf‘alu/
We do.
Here are a couple more examples of the 1st person plural:
أَنا أتَعَلَّمُ
/’anaa ’ata‘allamu/
I learn
نَحْنُ نَتَعَلَّمُ
/naHnu nata‘allamu/
We learn.
In the Arabic present tense, when conjugating in the 2nd person, the masculine singular noun should be followed by the verb with the prefix (تـ) added to the beginning of the verb:
أَنْتَ تَفْعَلُ
/’anta taf‘alu/
You do. (m.)
Likewise, the feminine singular noun should be followed by the verb with the prefix (تـ) added to the beginning; however, it also gets the suffix (ـين) added to the end, like so:
أَنْتِ تَفْعَلينَ
/’anti taf‘aleena/
You do (f.)
Here are more examples of present tense conjugation in the 2nd person:
أَنْتَ تَشْرَبُ
/’anta tashrabu/
You drink. (m.)
أنتِ تَشْربين
/’anti tashrabeena/
You drink. (f.)
أنتَ تَتَكَلَّمُ
/’anta tatakallamu/
You speak. (m.)
أَنْتِ تَتَكَلَّمينَ
/’anti tatakallameena/
You speak. (f.)
When it comes to the masculine 3rd person singular, the verb takes the prefix (يـ). For example:
هُوَ يَفْعَلُ
/huwa yaf‘alu/
He does.
However, the feminine is (تَـــ) should be followed by the verb with the prefix (ت):
هِيَ تَفْعَلُ
/hiya taf‘alu/
She does.
Other examples include:
هوَ يتَكَلَّمُ
/huwa yatakallamu/
He speaks.
هِيَ تَتَكَلَّمُ
/hiya tatakallamu/
She speaks.
هُوَ يَشْرَبُ
/huwa yashrabu/
He drinks.
هِيَ تَشْرَبُ
/hiya tashrabu/
She drinks.
Thanks to Kaleela, learning the verb tenses in Arabic just gets easier, doesn’t it? Now you can talk about that unfinished business and start planning for the future (which is our next lesson, by the way).
Indeed, Kaleela makes learning all Arabic the right way just as easy as learning verb tenses. Why not find out for yourself by downloading the Kaleela Arabic language learning app and start speaking Arabic by tomorrow. Get it now only from www.kaleela.com.
Kaleela – Learn Arabic the Right Way!
