Gender and number

Arabic nouns have gender (feminine and masculine) and number (singular, dual and plural). Luckily, Arabic grammar is very systematic. Therefore, it is quite easy to recognize the gender and number of an Arabic word.

We start by looking at the Arabic word for parent:

This word is in singular and masculine. In other words, one parent that is a man. In other words: a father.

Feminine

If we want to talk about a mother, we change the gender to feminine.

The only differnce is that the word is pronunced with a in the end. This is done with the short vowel a and the letter ta marbuta:

ـَة

Ta marbuta is only used in the end of words. It looks like the letter h, but with two dots above.

Many Arabic word in feminine singular ends with a.

Feminine plural

If we want to talk about many mothers, we use the feminine plural form.

The words ends with the short vowel a, the letter alef and the letter t.

ـَات

The short vowel a plus alif equals long vowel aa. The pronounciation is therefore pronounced "aat".

This ending is called regular plural feminine. A lot of words has this ending.

Regular plural feminine ends with "aat".

Masculine plural

If we want to talk about many fathers, or a group of both mothers and fathers, we use the masculine plural form.

The words ends with the short vowel u, the letter waw and the letter n.

ـُون

The short vowel u plus waw equals long vowel uu. The pronounciation is therefore pronounced "uun".

This ending is called regular plural masculine.

Regular plural masculine ends with "uun".

Challenge

Here is the Arabic word for beautiful:

It is the masculine singular form of beautiful. If you want to say that a man is beautiful, this is the form you use.

If you want to say that a woman is beautiful, you need the feminine singular form. What is the word beautiful in feminine singular?

If you want to say that many women are beautiful, you need the feminine plural form. What is the word beautiful in feminine plural?

If you want to say that many men are beautiful, or that a group of men and women are beautiful, you need the masculine plural form. What is the word beautiful in masculine plural?

Uses of regular plural

The words we just looked at has regular plural ending. The feminine plural ends with "aat", and the masculine plural ends with "uun".
This is common for words that can be used to describe people.

The ending "uun" is only used for masculine plural. But the ending "aat" is used for both feminine and masculine plural.
There are three typical uses for the ending "aat":

• Feminine plural for words that describe people, such as parent and beautiful
• Feminine plural for words that describe things and are feminine in singular, such as industry
• Masculine plural for words that describe things are masculine in singular, such as comment

Broken plural

A lot of words have regular plural endings, especially words that can be used to describe people. But there are also a lot of words with broken plural.

We know that many Arabic words follow patterns. Most broken plural forms also follow patterns. Since there are a lot of patterns, some are used as both word pattern and a plural pattern.

And example of a word with broken plural is the Arabic word for mountain.

The plural pattern is: first root letter + short vowel i + second root letter + long vowel aa + third root letter. We call it fi3aal (because f refers to the first root letter, 3 refers to the second root letter and l refers to the third root letter).

Challenge

Here is the Arabic word for dog:

It has the same broken plural pattern as the Arabic word for mountain. How do you say dogs?