A noun is a person, place or thing. "Proper nouns" are the names of people, places or things, such as "Philadelphia," or "Ben Franklin." All nouns in Arabic are either "masculine" or "feminine" in gender. In this way, Arabic is similar to most European languages, such as French, Spanish or German, which all have genders for their nouns. This makes sense when you're talking about nouns that are for people, such as:
Masculine Human Nouns
Mudarris - male teacher Ustaath - male professor Waalid - father Walad - boy Akh - brother Jadd - grandfather
But for speakers of English, it can be confusing to talk about the gender of non-human objects, such as the following:
Masculine Non-human Nouns
Kitaab - book Ism - name, noun Baab - door Al-Maghrib - Morocco Qalam - pen Dars - lesson Bayt - house Arnab - rabbit
Feminine Non-human Nouns
Madrasah - school Sayyaarah - car Lughah - language Mir - Egypt Madiinah - city Taawilah - table Ziraafah - giraffe
Fortunately, in Arabic it is usually easy to tell if a noun is masculine or feminine. Look at the examples above. You will notice that most of the feminine nouns end with an "-ah" sound. This is how you can tell that the noun is feminine. It's a lot easier than French or German, where you have to memorize the gender of every noun. However, for some proper nouns, like Misr or al-Maghrib, you still need to memorize whether it's masculine or feminine.
An adjective is a word which describes a noun. Here are some common adjectives:
Adjectives
Kabiir - big aghiir - small Jadiid - new Qadiim - old Jamiil - beautiful Tawiil - long, tall Qaiir - short acb - difficult Sahl - easy
In Arabic, the adjective follows the noun it describes--the opposite of English. An adjective must "agree" in gender with the noun it describes: If the noun is masculine, the adjective must be masculine. If the noun is feminine, the adjective must be feminine. You make the adjective feminine simply by adding the "-ah" sound at the end. Look at the following examples:
Kitaab qadiim = an old book
Walad jamiil = a handsome boy
Taalib jadiid = a new student
Baab aghiir = a small door
Bint jamiilah = a beautiful girl
Sayyaarah jadiidah = a new car
Madrasah kabiirah = a big school
Lughah qadiimah = an ancient language
An adjective must also agree with the noun it describes in "definiteness". Remember, you make a noun definite in Arabic by adding the "al-" (The) at the beginning. (Arnab = rabbit, al-arnab = the rabbit) So if the noun has an "al-" the adjective which describes it also has to have an "al-." Look at the following examples:
bayt qadiim = an old house al-bayt al-qadiim = the old house
walad awiil = a tall boy al-walad a-awiil = the tall boy
dars acb = a difficult lesson ad-dars a-acb = the difficult lesson
qalam jadiid = a new pen al-qalam al-jadiid = the new pen
aawilah jamiilah = a beautiful table a-aawilah al-jamiilah = the beautiful table
madiinah kabiirah = a big city al-madiinah al-kabiirah = the big city
lughah sahlah = an easy language al-lughah as-sahlah = the easy language
