Arabic for Beginners

A word about plural

Unlike in English, very few nouns follow a specific rule as to the formation of plural. A new word should be learnt together with its plural form as far as possible. You will have to consult a dictionary for this; though with experience you will be able to recognize common patterns and therefore guess quite correctly. This type of plural is called the broken plural.

There are two other types: sound masculine plural and sound feminine plural. These two follow regular patterns but are, as stated above, very few. We will tackle them first, before moving on to broken plural.

Sound Masculine Plural

The sound masculine plural is formed by adding وْنَ at the end of a singular noun. Note the change of the former final vowel into a single ــُـ before the waw.

The و before the final ن sometimes changes into a ي, which then makes the noun end in ين, with a ــِـ before the ي. This happens in a number of cases, such as when the plural:

• is preceded by a preposition
• is a direct object

Sound Feminine Plural

The sound feminine plural is formed by adding اْتٌ at the end of a singular noun after removing the feminine ending ة. Note the single ــَـ before the alif.

Summary

• There are 3 types of plural; of these only 2 are regular.
• Most plurals are irregular
• A noun is to be learnt together with its plural.
• Sound Masculine Plural is used for male persons only (with very very few exceptions)
• Sound Feminine Plural applies to a lot of objects also, not only to female persons.
• For sound feminine plural, the ة is dropped before adding ات

Vocabulary

Exercise

Form the Sound Masculine/Feminine Plurals of the above nouns.