Wednesday 19 August 2015

Arabic prepositions - describing places


بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس العشرون

السلام عليكم ورَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وبَركاتُه ,  Insha-allah lets learn to answer some “أين ?” questions.  Learn the below prepositions commonly used in vocabulary.


Above - فَوقَ
Under - تَحتَ
on the Left of -  على يسار
on the right of - على يَمِين
Front - أمام
back - خَلفَ
in the middle - في وَسَط
around - حَول
Between - بَين
besides -  بِجانِب

With these prepositions it’s easy to build sentences that you can use to describe places.  We already know that to tell “there is” in arabic we use “هُناك”  and there isn’t means “لَيس هُناك”.
Let’s try to describe the below picture [ صُورَة].



This is the picture of the city
هذه صورة المدينة
there is a street in the city
هناك شارع في المدينة
In the center of the city there is a bank and besides bank there is school
في وسط المدينة هناك بنك وبِجانِب البنك هناك مدرسة
The school is between bank and hospital
والمدرسة بين البنك والمستشفى
On the right side of bank there is an old factory
على الأيمن البنك هناك المصنع القديم
The are beautiful trees in front of bank but there are no trees in front of hospital
وأشجار جميلة أمام البنك ولكن لَيس هُناك شجر أمام المستشفى

Try to hide the arabic sentences from your eyes and read only english sentences above and try to translate them in mind.

Prophet (SAW)'s Prayers

Below is the beautiful dua.  If you have learned the prepositions from this chapter then the dua should be easy.  Below prepositions are marked in red.
When going for Fajr Prayer
Recite:

اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْ فِي قَلْبِي نُورَاً وَفِي بَصَرِي نُورَاً وَفِي سَمْعِي نُورَاً وَعَنْ يَمِينِي نُورَاً وَعَنْ شِمَالِي نُورَاً وَاجْعَلْ لِي نُورَاً وَفِي عَصَبِي نُورَاً وَفِي لَحْمِي نُورَاً وَفِي دَمِي نُورَاً وَفِي شَعْرِي نُورَاً وَفِي بَشَرِي نُورَاً وَفِي لِسَانِي نُورَاً وَاجْعَلْ فِي نَفْسِي نُورَاً وَأَعْظِمْ لِي نُورَاً وَاجْعَلْنِي نُورَاً وَاجْعَلْ مِنْ خَلْفِي نُورَاً وَمِنْ أَمَامِي نُورَاً وَاجْعَلْ مِنْ فَوْقِي نُورَاً وَمِنْ تَحْتِي نُورَاً اللَّهُمَّ أَعْطِنِي نُورَاً

"O Allah, give me Nur in my heart, me eyes, ears, on my right side, on my left side. Specify Nur for me and my progeny. Grant Nur in my flesh, my blood, my hair, my skin, my tongue and my nafs (soul) and and increase my nur, and make me nur, and make nur from my behind and make nur from my front and make nur above me and under me and grant me nur all around"

(Hisnul Hasin)


The verb used in above supplication is “جعل - يجعل” meaning “to make”.
The Prayer is very beautifull.  First of all its covering many body parts and the prepositions . So you are learing lot of arabic words in one dua.  And more than that if you read this prayer while going for Fajr prayer and think of the noor you will be getting … ما شاء الله.   Please memorise this dua.

Lets end this chapter with an exercise. Look at the below picture and translate below sentences in arabic.

  1. Is the chair besides table ?
  2. Yes, chair is besides table
  3. where is television. [تلفزيون]
  4. Is the picture besides table ?
  5. Where is the table ?
  6. Where is the wardrobe. [خزانة]
  7. Is television under the window.
  8. Where is the bed.
  9. where is the bag
  10. Is the table between the chair and wardrobe ?

Thursday 13 August 2015

Arabic adjectives - Comparatives and superlatives

بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمانِ الرَّحِيم

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وآله وصحبه

الدرس التاسع عشر



السلام عليكم ورَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وبَركاتُه,  Alhamdulillah we have been practicing on adjectives.  The last area we want to study in adjectives is superlatives and comparatives.  ex. In english for adjective “Tall / old” we can convert it to comparative by  - “taller / older” . and superlative by - “tallest / oldest”.  

In arabic comparatives and superlatives are formed using following pattern.  
Note: contents are directly from the book “mastering arabic 2nd edition”.

Best example would be below which is superlative form of  (كبير).

I guess below hadith should be known to everyone. Can you notice the comparative adjective ?

صلاة الجماعة أفضل من صلاة الفرد بـ 27 درجة




Practice drills:  read the following.

1)
طويل ، أطول
Tall - Taller / tallest
هذا الولد طويل
this boy is tall
و لكن هذه البنت هي أطول من الولد
but this girl is taller than the boy
هي الأطول في المدرسة
she is the tallest in the school

2)

 (Older - أقدم)
(old - قديم)
هذا البيت القديم
this house is old
ولكن هذا القصر أقدم من البيتِ   
but this fort is older than the house
هو أقدم قصر في البلاد
this is the oldest fort in the country



3) Try to translate below


There are some important points to be noted for comparative and superlatives.

Note 1:   The comparative does not change according to whether they are describing something masculine / feminine. or dual / plural.

ex:

الطالباتُ المدرسةِ أذكي من الطلابِ المدرسةِ
The girl students of the school are more intelligent than the boy students of the school

Note 2: If the second and third letters of the adjective are the same , they are written together with shadda in comparative. and if the third root letter is (waw - و) or (ya - ي) this changes to (alif)
example:

strong
شديد

stronger
أشدَدُ
stronger
أشدَّ
little
قليل

lesser
أقلّ
sweet
حلو

sweeter
أحلى

Note 3:   خير and  شرّ  are used as meaning better and worse.   For these two there is NO comparative form.  ex.  (أخير) is wrong.


زيد خيرمن بكر
zaid is better than bakr
زينب خير من هند
zaynab is better than hind
زينب شرّ امرأة
zaynab is worst woman

And always remember …..

الصلاة خير من النوم