Intro to فِعْلٌ¶
فِعْلٌ, or verbs, have a number of different forms, or conjugations. You'll get some root letters, then a whole bunch of words based on those root letters that all mean similar-ish things.
For instance, take نَصَرَ, or "he helped". Some different forms are:
- يَنْصُرُ - "he helps/will help"
- اَنْصُرُ - "I help/will help"
- نَاصِرُ - "the one who helps", or "the helper" (this one is actually an اسم, but it's still derived from نصر)
These are only a few examples, there's many more.
For now, we'll cover ثُلَاثِيْ مُجَرَّد, regular فعل with 3 root letters (most فعل have 3 root letters, some have 4).
An example of such a فعل is نصر. We give names to each of the letters by matching them up to فَعَلَ as follows:
- ن is the ف kalima
- ص is the ع kalima
- ر is the ل kalima
So e.g. in ضَرَبَ, the ل kalima is ب.
The حَرَكَة (i.e. the punctuation and how you say the words) fall into 6 patterns, or 6 بَاب (i.e. these فعل fall into 6 groups). And for those 6 باب, each of them have:
- المَاضِيْ perfect (i.e. past) tense
- المُضَارِع imperfect (i.e. present/future) tense
- الاَمْر a command (we'll do this later)
(I know this sounds confusing, the examples should make it clearer). The 6 باب are:
- نَصَرَ / يَنْصُرُ
- ضَرَبَ / يَضْرِبُ
- فَتَحَ / يَفْتَحُ
- سَمِعَ / يَسْمَعُ
- كَرُمَ / يَكْرُمُ
- حَسِبَ / يَحِسِبُ
Note that some of these are used more than others.
Let's take a look at نَصَرَ first. نصر is the Arabic verb for "he helped". Here is it's conjugation for the past tense:
| Arabic | English |
|---|---|
| نَصَرَ | He helped |
| نَصَرَا | They (2 male) helped |
| نَصَرُو | They (3+ male) helped |
| نَصَرَتْ | She helped |
| نَصَرَتَا | They (2 female) helped |
| نَصَرْنَ | They (3+ female) helped |
| نَصَرْتَ | You (male) helped |
| نَصَرْتُمَا | You (2 male) helped |
| نَصَرْتُمْ | You (3+ male) helped |
| نَصَرْتِ | You (female) helped |
| نَصَرْتُمَا | You (2 female) helped |
| نَصَرْتُنَّ | You (3+ female) helped |
| نَصَرْتُ | I helped |
| نَصَرْنَا | We helped |
And here is it's conjugation for the present/future tense:
| Arabic | English |
|---|---|
| يَنْصُرُ | He is helping/will help |
| يَنْصُرَانِ | They (2 male) are helping/will help |
| يَنْصُرُوْنَ | They (3+ male) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرُ | She is helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرَانِ | They (2 female) are helping/will help |
| يَنْصُرْنَ | They (3+ female) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرُ | You (male) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرَانِ | You (2 male) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرُوْنَ | You (3+ male) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرِيْنَ | You (female) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرَانِ | You (2 female) are helping/will help |
| تَنْصُرْنَ | You (3+ female) are helping/will help |
| اَنْصُرُ | I am helping/will help |
| نَنْصُرُ | We are helping/will help |
Just go through these 2 tables, go through the Arabic columns, and memorise the words in that order. Practice this repeatedly over a few days, until you can say all the Arabic words in order very quickly, without mistakes. As you do this, you'll notice patterns and some words that have multiple meanings, that's just how فعل are in Arabic.
Learning the remaining conjugations
You've seen how to do the conjugation for one of the 6 باب . Try and do the conjugations for the other 5 باب . It's exactly the same, the only difference is the حركة . Just follow the same patterns.
If you want to check your conjugations, or want to skip the exercise, you can find example conjugations for all 6 باب in the appendix, in thulaathee mujarrad.
If you want some more فعل to practice conjugating, here's some to try:
- رَجَعَ/يَرْجِعُ
- بَكَرَ/يَبْكُرُ
- حَدِبَ/يَحْدَبُ
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