The Three Types of “If” in Arabic

إمْكانِيّة

root: م-ك-ن / noun / plural: إمْكانِيّات / definition: possibility

---

I intended for this week’s post to be a headline analysis or root exploration—neither of which we’ve had in a while. But then someone mentioned they’d like to see a post about the different types of “if” in Arabic, which happens to be one of the posts queued up in my ever-lengthening to-write list.

So now’s a good a time as any to explore the three conditional particles: لو، إذا and إن!

First things first, we have to know the different parts of a conditional sentence. Let’s take a look at an example in English:

If you want to write a novel, you have to start with the first page.

There’s three parts here:

• the conditional particle (أداة الشرط): if
• the condition (الشرط): you want to write a novel
• the result (جواب الشرط): you have to start with the first page

We’ll need to keep these in mind as we look at how to use each particle.

---

إذا

We use it for… possible or likely situations

The condition: is in past tense (even if the meaning is present or future)

The result: is usually introduced by فـ and can be in any tense

Examples:

إذا درستَ جيداً، سوف تنجح في الامتحان

if you study well, you’ll pass the exam

---

إذا كنتُ مريضاً، فَلم أحضر الحفلة

if I were ill, I wouldn’t have attended the party

---

!إذا لم ترد أن تأكل، فلا تأكل

if you don’t want to eat, don’t eat!

---

سيتغير الوضع في البلد إذا كان هناك رئيس آخر

the situation in the country will change if there were a different president

note: in the last example here, the result (the situation in the country will change) precedes the condition (there’s a different president), so we don’t use the فـ

---

لو

We use it for… unlikely or impossible situations

The condition: is usually in the past tense

The result: is in the past tense and usually introduced by لَـ

Examples:

لَو كان صادقاً، لَقاله من قبل

if he were truthful, he would have said it before

---

لَو أخرجتَ فيلماً، لَأصبحتَ غنياً

if you produced a film, you’d become rich

---

When we want to make the condition negative, we use لَولا (written as one word) and often translate as “if it weren’t for”:

لَولا القاموس، لَبكيتُ

if it weren’t for the dictionary, I’d cry

We can also add a pronoun suffix to لولا, for example:

لم يدرس العربية لَولاكِ

he wouldn’t have studied Arabic if it weren’t for you

(notice also how, in the example above, the result precedes the condition, so لَـ isn’t used)

---

Another common phrase we might see with لَو is حَتّى لَو (or, sometimes, حَتّى وَلَو), meaning “even if“:

لن أذهب إلى السوق، حتّى لو أردتُ

I won’t go to the market, even if I want to

---

إن

We use it for… possible situations, but this particle is more archaic/stylistic

The condition: is in the past tense or jussive (المضارع المجزوم)

The result: usually reflects the tense of the condition (e.g. if the condition is past tense, the result is often past tense etc); if the result is a nominal clause (i.e. begins with a noun or pronoun), the verb in the result can be present tense—فَـ may or may not be used to introduce the result

Examples:

إن شاء الله

if God wills

---

إن رجعتَ إلى البيت، فَشعرتَ بالهدوء

if you go back home, you’ll feel calm

---

إن يستغرقْ وقتاً طويلاً، فَالولد ينام

if it takes a long time, the boy will fall asleep

---

When the condition is negative, إن + لا are combined and preceded by وَ, which gives us وَإلّا:

وَإلّا، فسوف أتّصل بهم لاحقاً..

…and if not, I’ll contact them later

---

And there we have the three ifs!

I’ll hopefully see you next week with a different type of post for some more variety. But don’t forget to catch up on the recent grammar explanations in the meantime.

!في أمان الله

---

---

Follow The Arabic Pages on Instagram and Twitter, and find out how you can support this blog!

If you’d like to receive email notifications whenever a new post is published on The Arabic Pages, enter your email below and click “Subscribe”: