While English only has one way to make a word a plural, Arabic has several. To learners of the language this just adds another challenge and often an area for complaint, but the sweet thing about the plurals is that some of the plurals sound so cool you can't forget them and they add to the richness of the language. So feel free to take this facet of the language as a deterrent from learning Arabic or as an incentive.
I could look up the plural patterns and list them for you but almost any Arabic Language textbook will do that but I'd like to list the plurals I really like the sound of. The simplest style of plural is the simple feminine plural. Many of the words ending in a teh marboota ة are feminine and the great majority of them are made plural simply by dropping the teh marboota and adding ات -- "at". How boring would the whole language be if they only use this plural pattern! Anyhow, most of the borrowed words from English to Arabic get pluralised by this plural pattern eg. see-dee (CD) see-dee-at
I'm one of the groups of plurals that sound cool to me are classified as broken plurals, because they are made by inserting long vowels between the root letters. Ok down to the examples...
store = dukan - دكّان ---> dukakiin - دكاكين
key = miftaaH - مفتاح ---> mafaatiH - مفاتيح
dictionary = qaamoos - قاموس --> qawamiis - قواميس
The other plural pattern I like the sound of is the one used from masculine job titles. Words like ambasador, minister, prince, president, all get pluralised in the same pattern, which is nice since all these words are in the same type of word ie. masculine job titles.
prince = amiir - امير ---> umara' - أمراء
key = ra'iis - رئيس ---> roasa' - رؤساء
All of these plurals rhyme together so once you've learnt one or two it comes really naturally to pronounce other plurals with the same pattern.
I knew about the complexities of plurals quite early into studying Arabic and was happy enough to accept them as part of the challenge but there was one hairy extra detail I didn't discover until about 10 months into Yemen - the imperative.
An imperative is just an instruction so like in English when we command someone to do something we just say the verb on it's own, unconjugated eg. sit!, eat!, run!, leave! and so on. At the beginners level of Arabic we're taught the simplest imperative which is simply adding an alif / e sound at the start of verbs. So to say "sit!" the verb is jalasa (for he sat) and you just change that to ijlas. The imperative for walk is just imshee. Nothing to scary yet right? But then later they tell you there are 10 different patterns for making the imperative.
Actually now that I look at the 10 patterns they're not quite as complicated as I first thought. Patterns I, VII - X are all actually made with an initial alif and variations of the short internal vowels. So that bit's okay. Pattern II imperative is the same letters as the pattern II verb except two of the short vowels are different. Pattern III follows the same rules for the change to imperative as II and Patterns V, and VI are also similar to II. So really, with the exception of needing to learn the short vowels, the imperatives aren't too bad. If you make a mistake with the short vowels you will still be understood.
One further warning if you're considering learning Arabic - almost all words in Arabic are built up from 3 letters, called the root letters. From the root letters there are 10 different patterns for contorting the word to mean different but very similar things. So for example d-r-s means to study and this is pattern I. But if the r is lengthened to twice its length to d-rr-s (a longer trill on the r) the word means to teach, and this is pattern II. Pattern II always (in my experience) means to cause Pattern I to happen. Nice system don't you think? Then the the remaining 8 patterns are made by adding "T"s, "S"s and the long aa sound (alif) to make other meanings related to the word.
After 1 year I still have my training wheels on and I have to look up those 10 patterns from a chart but one day I hope to memorise them. The benefit being that the Hans Wehr lists the definitions by root form. So if you wanted to look up to teach, you'd look up d-r-s and then see pattern II = to teach. That's a trivial example because the other patterns aren't quite as easy to remember. I usually look up more complicated words by finding which verb pattern it has then I look up the root and look for the pattern with the appropriate number.
It sounds more complicated to describe than it really is. Here's another example. استعمل - ista3mala as I said before the patterns are usually made by adding alifs, "t"s and "s"s so I disregard them for now and that reveals the root letters. عمل - .3mala. .3mala. is a really common word and it takes up about 2 and half pages in the Hans Wehr. .3mala. means to work, as in "he worked". Then I check my verb patterns chart and it reveals the initial "ista.." prefix is added to pattern X words. Back in the Hans Wehr it says pattern X means to use, to employ.
If that last example sounds interesting to you then I think you'll probably enjoy learning Arabic. If not then you'll need to have some other motivations for studying it.
I could look up the plural patterns and list them for you but almost any Arabic Language textbook will do that but I'd like to list the plurals I really like the sound of. The simplest style of plural is the simple feminine plural. Many of the words ending in a teh marboota ة are feminine and the great majority of them are made plural simply by dropping the teh marboota and adding ات -- "at". How boring would the whole language be if they only use this plural pattern! Anyhow, most of the borrowed words from English to Arabic get pluralised by this plural pattern eg. see-dee (CD) see-dee-at
I'm one of the groups of plurals that sound cool to me are classified as broken plurals, because they are made by inserting long vowels between the root letters. Ok down to the examples...
store = dukan - دكّان ---> dukakiin - دكاكين
key = miftaaH - مفتاح ---> mafaatiH - مفاتيح
dictionary = qaamoos - قاموس --> qawamiis - قواميس
The other plural pattern I like the sound of is the one used from masculine job titles. Words like ambasador, minister, prince, president, all get pluralised in the same pattern, which is nice since all these words are in the same type of word ie. masculine job titles.
prince = amiir - امير ---> umara' - أمراء
key = ra'iis - رئيس ---> roasa' - رؤساء
All of these plurals rhyme together so once you've learnt one or two it comes really naturally to pronounce other plurals with the same pattern.
I knew about the complexities of plurals quite early into studying Arabic and was happy enough to accept them as part of the challenge but there was one hairy extra detail I didn't discover until about 10 months into Yemen - the imperative.
An imperative is just an instruction so like in English when we command someone to do something we just say the verb on it's own, unconjugated eg. sit!, eat!, run!, leave! and so on. At the beginners level of Arabic we're taught the simplest imperative which is simply adding an alif / e sound at the start of verbs. So to say "sit!" the verb is jalasa (for he sat) and you just change that to ijlas. The imperative for walk is just imshee. Nothing to scary yet right? But then later they tell you there are 10 different patterns for making the imperative.
Actually now that I look at the 10 patterns they're not quite as complicated as I first thought. Patterns I, VII - X are all actually made with an initial alif and variations of the short internal vowels. So that bit's okay. Pattern II imperative is the same letters as the pattern II verb except two of the short vowels are different. Pattern III follows the same rules for the change to imperative as II and Patterns V, and VI are also similar to II. So really, with the exception of needing to learn the short vowels, the imperatives aren't too bad. If you make a mistake with the short vowels you will still be understood.
One further warning if you're considering learning Arabic - almost all words in Arabic are built up from 3 letters, called the root letters. From the root letters there are 10 different patterns for contorting the word to mean different but very similar things. So for example d-r-s means to study and this is pattern I. But if the r is lengthened to twice its length to d-rr-s (a longer trill on the r) the word means to teach, and this is pattern II. Pattern II always (in my experience) means to cause Pattern I to happen. Nice system don't you think? Then the the remaining 8 patterns are made by adding "T"s, "S"s and the long aa sound (alif) to make other meanings related to the word.
After 1 year I still have my training wheels on and I have to look up those 10 patterns from a chart but one day I hope to memorise them. The benefit being that the Hans Wehr lists the definitions by root form. So if you wanted to look up to teach, you'd look up d-r-s and then see pattern II = to teach. That's a trivial example because the other patterns aren't quite as easy to remember. I usually look up more complicated words by finding which verb pattern it has then I look up the root and look for the pattern with the appropriate number.
It sounds more complicated to describe than it really is. Here's another example. استعمل - ista3mala as I said before the patterns are usually made by adding alifs, "t"s and "s"s so I disregard them for now and that reveals the root letters. عمل - .3mala. .3mala. is a really common word and it takes up about 2 and half pages in the Hans Wehr. .3mala. means to work, as in "he worked". Then I check my verb patterns chart and it reveals the initial "ista.." prefix is added to pattern X words. Back in the Hans Wehr it says pattern X means to use, to employ.
If that last example sounds interesting to you then I think you'll probably enjoy learning Arabic. If not then you'll need to have some other motivations for studying it.
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