By now, you’ve learned a little bit of vocabulary and most of the parts of speech in Arabic. That means now it’s time for you to step it up a notch, put it all together, and start making sentences.
Basically, Arabic has two types of sentences: the verbal sentence (الجُمْلَةُ الفِعْلِيَةُ/aljumlatu ilfi‘liyyatu) and the nominal sentence (الجُمْلَةُ الاِسْمِيَةُ/aljumlatu ilʼismiyyatu). We’ll start with the verbal sentence.
Verbal sentences start with a verb, are followed by a noun, and may or may not contain an object. Look at the following sentence:
أكَلَ الرَّجُلُ التُّفّاحَةَ
/ʼakala irrajulu ittuffaaHata/
The man ate the apple.
Here you can see the sentence starts with a verb (أكل/ʼakalla/“ate”) followed by the noun (الرَّجُلُ/irrajulu/“the man”) and the object (التُّفاحَة/ittuffaaHah/“the apple”).
Here’s another example:
كَتَبَ عُمَرُ رِسالَةً
/kataba ‘umaru risaalatan/
Omar wrote a letter.
Again, this sentence starts with a verb (كَتَبَ/kataba/ “wrote”) followed by the noun (عُمَرُ /‘umaru/“Omar”) and then the object (رِسالَةً/risaalatan/“letter”).
In a verbal sentence, the subject can be a proper noun a common noun, or a pronoun:
أكَلَ عُمَرُ التُّفّاحَةَ
/ʼakala ‘umaru ittuffaaHata/
Omar ate the apple.
Here the subject is the proper noun عُمَرُ/‘umaru/“Omar”.
أكَلَ الرَّجُلُ التُّفّاحَةَ
/ʼakala irrajulu ittuffaaHata/
The man ate the apple.
In this case, the subject is the common noun الرَّجُلُ/irrajulu/ “the man”.
The object in the verbal sentence is the person or thing receiving the action of the verb. For instance, in the sentence أكَلَ عُمَرُ التُّفّاحَةَ./ʼakala ‘umaru ittuffaaHata./Omar ate the apple, the object is التُّفّاحَةَ/ittuffaaHata/the apple because the apple is receiving the action of having been ate.
In Arabic, the nominative sentence starts with a noun or pronoun and may or may not have a verb. Regardless if it has a verb or not, however, a nominative sentence never starts with a verb.
الرَّجُلُ أكَلَ التُّفّاحَةَ
/arrajulu ʼakala ittuffaaHata/
The man ate the apple.
What’s more, a nominative sentence has two parts: المُبتَدَأ /almubtadaʼ/ “the indicate” and الخَبَر/alkhabar/ ‘the predicate”.
For example, in the nominative sentence الطَّقْسُ لَطيفٌ /aTTaqsu laTeefun/The weather is beautiful, الطَّقْسُ/aTTaqsu is the indicate and لَطيفٌ /laTeefun is the predicate.
Moreover, a pronoun can be an indicate as well, as in the following where the pronoun نحن /naHnu/ “we” is the indicate:
نَحْنُ مِنْ مِصْرَ
/naHnu min miSra/
We are from Egypt.
When it comes to the predicate, the most important thing to remember is that says something about the indicator. For example, in the sentence الطَّقْسُ لَطيفٌ /aTTaqsu laTeefun/The weather is beautiful, the predicate لَطيفٌ/laTeefun/”beautiful” is describing the indicate الطَّقْسُ /aTTaqsu/ “the weather”.
What’s more, the predicate can also be a noun, a prepositional sentence or a verbal sentence. Let’s look at a sentence where the predicate is a prepositional sentence:
نَحْنُ مِنْ مِصْرَ
/naHnu min miSra/
We are from Egypt.
Here, the predicate is the prepositional sentence مِنْ مِصْرَ/ min miSra/ “from Egypt” because it starts with the preposition من/min (“from”).
An example of a verbal sentence as the predicate can be seen in the following sentence:
الرَّجُلُ أكَلَ التُّفّاحَةَ
/arrajulu ʼakala ittuffaaHata/
The man ate the apple.
As you’ll notice, here the predicate starts with a verb أكَلَ/ʼakala / “ate” making أكَلَ التُّفّاحَةَ/ ʼakala ittuffaaHata/ “ate the apple” a verbal clause that acts as a predicate.
So, there you go! You’ve now moved from words and grammar to making full sentences. And since you’ve come this far, why not keep it going with a subscription to the Kaleela Arabic language learning app? You already know that Kaleela makes learning Arabic the right way fun and easy as it takes you step-by-step through the Arabic language. Let it continue to take you from learning Arabic grammar to speaking in your favorite Arabic dialect. Visit our website at www.kaleela.com and subscribe today!
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