Intermediate Arabic FOR DUMmIES‰ by Keith Massey, PhD Intermediate Arabic FOR DUMmIES‰ by Keith Massey, PhD Intermediate Arabic For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2008933792 ISBN: 978-0-470-37337-8 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 About the Author Keith Massey has been studying languages his whole life, starting with high school Latin and continuing to a PhD in Biblical Hebrew and Arabic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After 9/11, he went to work at the Top Secret National Security Agency as an Arabic linguist, where he served for more than four years. He now teaches Latin and Arabic in New Jersey, summering with his wife in her native Romania. An avid traveler, Keith has visited 15 different countries, 5 of which have been Arabic-speaking countries. Dedication To my father Bill and my late mother Nancy, who taught me the value of hard work. And to Dustin Cowell, my first Arabic instructor. May this book further the mutual understanding between cultures to which you have devoted your life. Author’s Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my wife, Adriana, for her support as I wrote this book. Thanks to my agent, Barb Doyen, for her encouragement throughout this process. And to all the people at Wiley Publishing, especially to project editor Stephen Clark and copy editor Jessica Smith for their extraordinary patience and enormous talent in this project. Thanks also goes to acquisitions editor Michael Lewis, senior copy editors Sarah Faulkner and Danielle Voirol, and technical editor Dr. Haitham M. Alkhateeb. Last but not least, thanks to my former colleagues David, Jennifer, Michael, and Ron for their friendship at the Fort and beyond as well as to my students Arielle Shahid and Sherron Tynan for their helpful suggestions on the manuscript. Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Composition Services Project Editor: Stephen R. Clark Project Coordinator: Katie Key Acquisitions Editor: Michael Lewis Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Carrie A. Cesavice Copy Editor: Jessica Smith Proofreaders: Jessica Kramer, Shannon Ramsey Editorial Program Coordinator: Indexer: Carol A. Burbo Erin Calligan Mooney Special Help: Sarah Faulkner and Danielle Voirol Technical Editor: Haitham M. Alkhateeb Editorial Manager: Christine Meloy Beck Editorial Assistants: Joe Niesen, David Lutton Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com) Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel Publishing for Technology Dummies Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services Contents at a Glance Introduction ............................................................................1 Part I: Polishing Your Arabic Skills ...........................................7 Chapter 1: Looking at Numbers, Times, and Dates ..........................................................................9 Chapter 2: Arabic 101 Refresher .......................................................................................................27 Chapter 3: The Write Stuff: How to Read and Write the Arabic Alphabet ..................................51 Part II: Becoming a Master at Using Nouns .............................73 Chapter 4: Making Your Case with the Three Cases of the Arabic Noun ....................................75 Chapter 5: Forming the Plural in Arabic ..........................................................................................87 Chapter 6: Bringing Your Sentences to Life with Adjectives and Adverbs .................................99 Chapter 7: Making Connections: Mastering the ’iDaafa Construction .......................................117 Chapter 8: Pronouns: Relatively Speaking .....................................................................................127 Part III: Staying Active: Forming Arabic Verbs.......................141 Chapter 9: Forms and Functions: The Forms of the Arabic Verb ...............................................143 Chapter 10: Exploring Irregularity in Arabic Verbs ......................................................................167 Chapter 11: Using the Imperative in Commands ..........................................................................193 Chapter 12: Writing to the Point with Object Suffixes and Pronouns ........................................207 Chapter 13: The Indicative, Jussive, and Subjunctive Moods of the Arabic Verb ....................221 Part IV: Enlivening Your Writing with Particles ......................237 Chapter 14: Forming Conditional Sentences .................................................................................239 Chapter 15: Picking Up the Pieces Using Particles and Partitives..............................................251 Chapter 16: Uncovering the Source of the Verbal Noun ..............................................................263 Chapter 17: Being Positive About Adding the Negative to Arabic Sentences ...........................277 Chapter 18: Active and Passive Participles ...................................................................................287 Part V: The Part of Tens .......................................................301 Chapter 19: Ten Mistakes to Avoid in Arabic ................................................................................303 Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Fine-Tune Your Arabic Skills ...............................................................307 Part VI: Appendixes .............................................................311 Appendix A: Verb Chart ...................................................................................................................313 Appendix B: English-Arabic Dictionary ..........................................................................................315 Appendix C: Arabic-English Dictionary ..........................................................................................323 Index ..................................................................................331 Table of Contents Introduction .....................................................................................1 About This Book .........................................................................................................................1 Conventions Used in This Book ................................................................................................2 Foolish Assumptions ..................................................................................................................2 How This Book Is Organized .....................................................................................................3 Part I: Polishing Your Arabic Skills .................................................................................3 Part II: Becoming a Master at Using Nouns ...................................................................3 Part III: Staying Active: Forming Arabic Verbs ..............................................................3 Part IV: Enlivening Your Writing with Particles ............................................................4 Part V: The Part of Tens ...................................................................................................4 Part VI: Appendixes ..........................................................................................................4 Icons Used in This Book .............................................................................................................4 Where to Go from Here ..............................................................................................................5 Part I: Polishing Your Arabic Skills ...................................................7 Chapter 1: Looking at Numbers, Times, and Dates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Focusing on Arabic Numbers ....................................................................................................9 Cardinal numbers: The digits you count with ............................................................10 Ordinal numbers: The numbers you rank things with ...............................................15 Arabic numerals: The symbols you write numbers with ..........................................17 Discovering How to Tell Time the Arabic Way .....................................................................18 Making Dates: Getting to Know the Arabic Days and Months ............................................20 Exploring the days of the week .....................................................................................21 Remembering the months of the year .........................................................................21 Writing full dates with the day, month, and year .......................................................22 Answer Key ................................................................................................................................24 Chapter 2: Arabic 101 Refresher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Understanding How the Arabic Triliteral Root System Impacts Nouns ............................28 Naming People, Places, and Things: Nouns 101 ....................................................................29 Exploring the types of Arabic nouns ............................................................................29 Engendering differences ................................................................................................30 Being Specific with the Definite State .....................................................................................32 The sun letters ................................................................................................................33 The moon letters ............................................................................................................34 Working with Pronouns and Pronoun Suffixes .....................................................................35 Discovering the independent forms of Arabic pronouns ..........................................35 Tacking on the possessive pronoun suffixes to Arabic nouns .................................36 Getting Active with Arabic Verbs ...........................................................................................38 Writing the past tense verb ...........................................................................................38 Creating the present tense verb ...................................................................................39 Forming the future tense verb ......................................................................................41 Grasping Arabic Grammar Essentials.....................................................................................42 Adding up equational sentences ..................................................................................43 Creating action with verbal sentences.........................................................................44 Expressing possession with the ’iDaafa structure .....................................................44 Navigating Arabic Bilingual Dictionaries ...............................................................................45 Using the dictionaries in the appendixes of this book ..............................................46 Finding your way through a regular Arabic-English dictionary................................46 Answer Key ................................................................................................................................47