The Arabic Pages

Wehr Wednesdays #84

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Seven Arabic Verbs Meaning “to Happen”

حَدَث

root: ح-د-ث / noun / plural: أَحْداث / definition: event, occurrence

*Inhaling the scent of dictionary pages* Ahh… vocabulary! You’ve got no choice but to love expanding your mental lexicon, and learning synonyms of words you already know and use is a great way to do it!

So here we have seven Arabic verbs for “to happen, occur, take place”, starting with…

Wehr Wednesdays #83

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Step-by-Step Arabic Literature Translation #7

مُؤَلِّف

root: ء-ل-ف / noun / plural: مُؤَلِّفون / definition: author, writer

We’re adding to the literature translation series this week—it’s been a while!—with a short excerpt from عائد إلى حيفا (Returning to Haifa) by غسان كنفاني (Ghassan Kanafani).

Wehr Wednesdays #82

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Academic Pursuits

مَسْعى

root: س-ع-ي / noun / plural: مَساعٍ / definition: pursuit, endeavour

It’s been over a year since my last update about my language learning journey, where I wrote about all the uncertainties surrounding my return to the formal study of Arabic.

And the reason I haven’t given any updates until now is that my plans—like the rest of the population’s—were much too dependent on there not being a pandemic. Ah, the complacency!

Very, very fortunately, I finally have a really exciting update…

Wehr Wednesdays #81

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

The Absolute Negation in Arabic

نَفْي

root: ن-ف-ي / verbal noun of form I / definition: negation

Do you remember the phrase لا داعِيَ from Wehr Wednesdays #32? Did you wonder why the word داعي ends in a fatha here?

It’s all down to the “لا of absolute negation”…

Wehr Wednesdays #80

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Arabic Verbs for “to Look at”

بَصَر

root: ب-ص-ر / noun / plural: أَبْصار / definition: sight

I’m feeling really refreshed as I start this post (perhaps thanks to taking Friday off work and having a little time to breathe)! And as you’ve figured out from the title, it’s another addition to our synonyms series.

Oh, I can’t explain just how much I love these posts: a chance to admire Arabic’s rich lexicon, expand my vocabulary, and share all of this with you, fellow Arabic lovers.

Wehr Wednesdays #79

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Using كاد

مَشغولة

root: ش-غ-ل / passive participle of form I, feminine / definition: busy

I’ve finally got round to writing this post, as you can see, five or six months after I mentioned I would in Four Arabic Roots to Express the Phrase “on the Verge of”.

But time’s not an issue for us Arabic learners, right? We’ll be spending a lifetime trying to master this language anyway!

Wehr Wednesdays #78

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

How to Say “Post-” in Arabic

مَرْحَلة

root: ر-ح-ل / noun / plural: مَراحِل / definition: stage, phase

Don’t get confused, it’s not البريد (the post, mail) that we’re talking about this week—we’re actually looking at how to create words with the post- prefix, such as: postcolonial, postmodern, post-pandemic, etc.

Wehr Wednesdays #77

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Arabic Headline Analysis #6

شَهر

root: ش-ه-ر / noun / plural: أَشهُر or شُهور / definition: month

Seeing as it’s the first week of Ramadan (!رمضان مبارك)—and hopefully it still is by the time I finish this post—I’ve chosen a fitting headline to analyse in our latest addition to the series.

Let’s begin our word-by-word vocabulary and grammar explanation of the following headline:

Wehr Wednesdays #76

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

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!

Wehr Wednesdays #75

A new word or phrase from the Hans Wehr dictionary, every Wednesday.

Comparing بعض and بضع

تَحْديد

root: ح-د-د / verbal noun of form II / definition: specifying

The specifiers بَعْض and بِضْع are another example of the “same root letters, different sequence” phenomenon, as they have shared meanings. However, there’s some key differences between the meanings and grammar of these two words that we should know.