Small Arabic Words with Conditional Powers

قُوّة

root: ق-و-ي / noun / plural: قُوًى / definition: power, force

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Big things come in small packages—oh wait, that’s not how it goes. Nor is it what I meant actually. Maybe I meant “small but mighty” but didn’t want to sound like I’m advertising laundry detergent pods.

Ahem… today we’re looking at a group of small Arabic words that have grammatical power over the following verb, in the same way a conditional does.

We looked at the grammar of conditional sentences in The Three Types of “If” in Arabic.

One of the key takeaways from that post was that conditional particles like إذا and لو are followed by a past tense verb.

And there are some other words that act like conditionals, in that they also necessitate the following verb to be in the past tense.

This group includes words translated with the English suffix –ever, like:

مَهْما

whatever

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كُلَّما

whenever; the more…, the more…

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مَنْ

whoever

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أَينَ / أَينَما

wherever

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Let’s take a look at some examples:

سَأَكونُ مَعَكَ مَهْما حَدَثَ

I’ll be with you whatever happens

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أَخافُ كُلَّما اِتَّصَلَتْ بي

I get scared whenever she calls me

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مَنْ أَرادَ أَنْ يَفهَمَ المَوضوعَ، فَعَلَيهِ قِراءَةُ هذا الكِتاب

whoever wants to understand the topic must read this book

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أَراهُما أَينَما كُنْتُ

I see them both wherever I am

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Note that the meaning of the verb is present tense, despite its past tense form!

There are a few other small words that work in the same way. Feel free to write any that you’ve come across in the comments below…

!إلى اللقاء

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