Wednesday 27 May 2015

Arabic adjectives and Creating negative “to be” sentences


                                                                بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس الخامس عشر

السلام عليكم ورَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وبَركاتُه , Can you tell the chapter number from above title which you have learned from previous chapter ?  

Interesting incident from Bangladesh:
Public urination is a problem in Bangladesh due largely to a lack of public toilets. Municipal officials in the capital Dhaka have battled in vain to stop men urinating in public, with signs in the local Bengali language and warnings of punishment and fines yielding no notable results.


Now the government is hoping that an innovative idea can put a stop to the habit. Recently the Ministry of Religious Affairs released their campaign “Language Matters” wherein Bengali signs warning against urination are now being replaced by Arabic signs, a holy language for Bangladeshis.
Perhaps they have taken a cue from neighboring India — battling with the same problem — where pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses on the walls are intended to have the same effect.

Very good lesson for people who don’t learn arabic. Arabic has just become holy arts to be put on walls of our home.

In this chapter insha-allah we will learn about the arabic adjectives. As you know the adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence.  Please memorize these basic adjectives and their opposites.


Arabic adjective
English meaning
Opposite adjective
English meaning
غَنِيٌ
rich
فَقِيرٌ
poor
طَوِيلٌ
tall
قَصِيرٌ
short
بَرْدٌ
cold
حارٌ
hot
جَدِيدٌ
new
قَدِيمٌ
old
نَظِيفٌ
clean
وَسِخٌ
dirty
صَغِيرٌ
small
كَبِيرٌ
big
خَفِيفٌ
light weight
ثَقِيلٌ
heavy
صَالِحٌ
good
رَدِيء
bad
جَمِيلٌ
beautiful
قَبِيحٌ
ugly
ذَكِيٌ
intelligent
غَبِيٌ
stupid
نَشِطٌ
active
كَسْلانٌ
lazy

Look at this simple sentence.

The man is righteous
الرَجُلُ صَالِحٌ

Can you guess the meaning of  رَجُلٌ صَالِحٌ.    Same as above ?   No ..!!
If you notice above phrase the “man” is not definite. (i.e not الرَجُلُ  but  رَجُلٌ).  this changes the sentence into an adjective phrase.  “the righteous man”.

Note:  learn definite and indefinite from chapter -3.

The adjective phrase will have either both definite (noun + adjective) or both indefinite.
i.e.  رَجُلٌ صَالِحٌ   or الرَجُلُ الصَالِحُ .
Now this would be wrong :  رَجُلٌ الصَالِحُ  but الرَجُلُ صَالِحٌ is correct and it’s a simple sentence.
Important rule to remember on adjectives is that
Adjectives phrases always agrees with its noun ( subject ).

i.e if noun is definite, then adjective is also definite.  (رَجُلٌ صَالِحٌ)
if noun is indefinite then adjective is also indefinite.  (الرَجُلُ الصَالِحُ)
Similarly for dual, plural, or feminine. lets see all types in below table.
(مُعَلِّمٌ) means teacher. and (جَيِّدٌ) means good.

both indefinite
مُعَلِّمٌ جَيِّدٌ
A good male teacher
both definite
الْمُعَلِّمُ الْجَيِّدُ
The good male teacher
feminine, indefinite
مُعَلِّمَةٌ جَيِّدَةٌ
A good female teacher
feminine,
definite
الْمُعَلِّمَةُ الْجَيِّدَةُ
The good female teacher
dual,indefinite
مُعَلِّمَاْنِ جَيِّدَاْن
Two good male teachers
dual,definite
الْمُعَلِّمَاْنِ الْجَيِّدَاْن
The two good male teachers
dual,feminine,
indefinite
مُعَلِّمَتَاْنِ جَيِّدَتَاْن
Two good female teachers
dual,feminine,definite
الْمُعَلِّمَتَاْنِ الْجَيِّدَتَاْنَ
The two good female teachers
plural,
indefinite
مُعَلِّمُوْنَ جَيِّدُوْنَ
good male teachers > 2
plural definite
الْمُعَلِّمُوْنَ الْجَيِّدُوْنَ
The good male teachers
plural,
indefinite,
feminine
مُعَلِّمَاْتٌ جَيِّدَاْتٌ
good female teachers
plural,definite,
feminie
الْمُعَلِّمَاْتُ الْجَيِّدَاْتُ
The good female teachers
  

If we are talking about adjectives. then how can we forget about the ninety nine “Asma-e-Hasana” (Attributive or Adjective or beautiful) names of Allah mentioned in the Quran. To mention a few .

الرحمن
The All-Compassionate
الرحيم
The All-Merciful
الملك
The Absolute Ruler
القدوس
The Pure One
السلام
The Source of Peace
Notice that Allah’s attribute must be all definite.
Its very important to learn all the 99 names of Allah (swt).  It helps a lot when invoking your prayer. You call him by his beautiful names to get your prayers responded. The way you can memorise it is by listening to any audio on 99 names of Allah (swt), like 99 names of Allah by hashim abbas. example here:
Here is a beautiful hadith.  Read it. understand it. and spot adjectives in it.

“The Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) has told us:
كَلِمَتانِ خَفِيفَتانِ على اللِسَانِ ، ثَقِيلَتَانِ في المِيزان، حَبِيبتانِ إلى الرَحمن: سُبْحَان الله وبِحَمْدِه، سُبْحَان الله العَظِيم
“Two words are light on the tongue, heavy in the balance, beloved to the Merciful: ‘Glory be to Allah and by His praise. Glory be to Allah, the Immense.’” (Bukhari)





Creating negative “to be” sentences
Although Arabic doesn’t have a “to be” regular verb to create “I am” or “you are” phrases, it does have a verb you use to say “I am not” or “you are not.” This special irregular verb laysa (lay-sah) creates negative “to be” sentences.
example:  أنا لَسْتُ طَالِب .  I am not a student.

When we conjugate the verb ليس, we add the same suffixes to it that we use when we conjugate any verb in the past tense. Of course, we will only have present tense meaning with ليس. Below is a chart with the conjugations for ليس.

plural
dual
singular

 They are not   لَيْسوا
They are not لَيْسا
 He is not لَيْسَ      
3rd masc.
  They are not   لَسْنَ
 They are not  لَيْسا
 she is not  لَيْسَت
3rd fam.
 You are not  لَسْتُم
  You are not  لَسْتُما
 You are not  لَسْتَ
2nd masc.
 You  are not  لَسْتُنَّ
  You  are not  لَسْتُما
 You  are not  لَسْتِ
2nd fem
 We  are not  لَسْنا

  I  am not  لَسْتُ
1st


More example:
The director is not in this office   لَيْسَ المديرُ في المكتبِ    
You are not sick.  ( أنْت لَستَ مَرِيض )
We are not in the school. نَحْنُ لَسْنا في المَدَرسَة
The tall girl is not weak.  البنت طَويلَة ليسَتْ ضَعِيفَة



If we want to stress on the adjective, then we use “جِدًا.   i.e الرَجُلُ صَالِحٌ جِدًا
then man is very righteous.
Translating :  “The girl is very beautiful, she is not ugly”  will be.
البِنْت جَمِيلَة جدًا، هي ليست بِقَبِيحَة

Practice … Practice ….. Practice ….

If you just take a noun and an adjective. you can make many phrases like below.
House: البَيتُ   new : جَدِيدٌ

The house is new
البَيتُ جَدِيدٌ
A new house
بَيتٌ جَدِيدٌ
The new house
البَيتُ الجَدِيدُ
2 new house
بَيتان جَدِيدان
new houses
بُيوتٌ جَدِيدة
The house is very big
هذا البَيتُ جَدِيدٌ جِدًا
And it’s not old
و ليس بقَدِيمٌ

Similarly make same sentences for
Boy : ولد    Small : صغير
Food : طعام cold : برد
Bag : حقيبة  heavy : ثقيل
car : سيارة   fast: سرعة    slow:  بطيء
bird : طائر  black : أسود   white :  أبيض
student : طالب  lazy: كَسْلانٌ
Room -> clean / dirty
minaret  منارة  -> tall / short
Boy : strong / weak

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