Category: Vocabulary

Gender

Nouns in Arabic can be either masculine or feminine.

MASCULINE nouns refer to male gender and have no sign of gender. they are noun from the meaning of the word, such as:

  • Student [طالب ]
  • Man [ رَجُل]
  • book [ كتاب]
  • king [ مَلك]
  • pen [قلم]

FEMININE nouns refer to female gender and are of two types:

EXPLICIT: the word has feminine gender indicators as:

  • taa marboutah [ ة ] :
  • shortened alif [ ى ]:
  • alif followed by hamza [اء]:

We usually change the masculine nouns by suffixing taa marbouta [ ة ] to the noun.

IMPLICIT: the word does not have any gender indicators such as:

  • mother [ أم]
  • daughter [بنت ]
  • sun [شمس]
  • eye [عين]
  • ear [أذن]

There are some old masculine proper nouns end with tea marbouta such as:

معاوية ، حمزة ، عروة ، طلحة

Some nouns that end with (ى) as the last radical of the root verb are NOT feminine, such as:

  • shelter [مأوى ]
  • young man  [فتى ]
  • guidance  [هُدى ]

Most names of body organs that are pairs such as eyes, ears, lungs, kidneys are feminine even if they don’t have feminine signs:

  • kidney [كلية ]
  • lung [رئة ]
  • leg [رِجل ]
  • hand [يد ]
  • eye [عين ]
  • ear [أذن ]
  • testicle [ خصية]

Feminine words borrowed from other languages  usually end with [ا]:

  • France [فرنسا ]
  • Germany [ ألمانيا]
  • music [ موسيقا]
  • mango [ مانجا]
  • potatoes [بطاطا]

Some nouns that end with hamza after (ا) as the last radical of the verb are NOT feminine.

  • judgement /jurisprudence [قضاء ]
  • winter [ شتاء]
  • building [ بناء]

Now try to do the quiz below to evaluate your understanding.

Gender

Look at the noun and choose whether it is feminine [مؤنث] or masculine [مذكر].

Listening Quiz [Shared Accommodation ]

You will hear a radio interview with Haifa about a flat-share. You will hear the recording twice.

After you have listened to the audio,  click ‘take quiz‘ to answer the questions. Your results will be provided after you have finished the questions.

This listening exercise is taken from: OCR 2009, Asset Languages , Intermediate Arabic [Listening], Grade 7

Listening Exercise


 

My House

This post includes two quizzes that cover the Arabic names of parts of the house and common items of furniture. Soon, we will upload worksheets and sample lessons for teachers, parents and students.

Quiz 1

My House1

This quiz includes vocabulary items that name parts of house and items of furniture.

Read the word and choose its English meaning.

 

Quiz 2

My House 2

This quiz includes vocabulary items  that name parts of the house and items of furniture.

Read the word and choose its English meaning.

 

Personal Pronouns

Now you can do these two quizzes to check your understanding:

Read the pronoun and choose the correct image.

Personal Pronouns (images)

Look at the image and choose the correct image.

personal pronouns

GCSE [adjectives2]

adjectives 2

This quiz is to help students who are doing GCSE exams to revise their vocabulary. The quiz includes 20 adjectives and their meanings. Read the word
[adjective] in Arabic and choose the right English meaning.

Adjectives 2 Arabic

This quiz is to help students who are doing GCSE exams to revise their vocabulary. The quiz includes 20 adjectives and their meanings. Read the word [adjective] in English and choose the right Arabic meaning.

GCSE [adjectives1]

adjectives1

This quiz is to help students who are doing GCSE exams to revise their vocabulary. The quiz includes 20 adjectives and their meanings. Read the word [adjective] in Arabic and choose the right English meaning.

 

Adjectives 1 Arabic

This quiz is to help students who are doing GCSE exams to revise their vocabulary. The quiz includes 20 adjectives and their meanings. Read the word
[adjective] in English and choose the right Arabic meaning.

Reading Comprehension Practice

In this section, you will find short passages in the form of text messages. Here is the first one.

In this message Kareem has texted Sara to tell her that the classes in the institute were cancelled due to an emergency case. Read the message and listen to it and then do the quiz below.

Listen to the message here.

Now you can do the quiz here.

Quiz

Read the message above and choose the correct answer from A, B and C.

Colours

Remember

Names of colours in Arabic function both as nouns and adjectives. Therefore, when colours function as modifiers to a noun they follow the noun, unlike the English adjectives or pre-modifiers which occur before nouns.

More examples:

 

أريد الكتاب الأزرق

I want the blue book.

أريدُ القُبَّعةَ البُنّيّة

I want the brown hat.

أريدُ العَلَمَ الرماديّ

I want the grey flag.

 أريدُ السَّيَّارةَ الحَمراء

I want the red car.

أريدُ الزَّهرة البيضاء

I want the white flower

Test yourself

Colours

Reading [simple]

Read the notes about the three people Amal [أمل], Muhammad [محمد] and Omar [عمر] and do the quiz below.

Quiz

Read the notes about the three people and choose the correct answer.

Prepositions

حروف الجر Prepositions

Prepositions in Arabic are the particles that join with nouns and pronouns to form phrases. Prepositions MUST be followed by a noun or a pronoun. They do not connect to verbs. They have meanings of their own and have an effect on nouns and pronouns. They will change the vowel of the last letter of the noun from Dhammah  [ ُ ] or fatHa [بَ] to kasra [ِ  ]  . The noun after these prepositions is in the genitive case and is called (majroor). After you have studied the examples of the prepositions, you will find a quiz in the end of the page. You can do this quiz to evaluate your comprehension. The quiz is a good practice not only to see how prepositions are used within a context but also to learn some communicative functions.

These prepositions are:

 

After you have studied the above examples try to do this quiz.

quiz [prepositions]

Complete the sentences with the right prepositions

Here is another quiz:

Quiz1

Read the short dialogues and choose the correct answer to fill in the gap. These questions are short dialogues from daily life. Each question is accompanied by a translation into English. The translation is not meant to help you find the answer but it is meant to help you learn the functions of the language.