دروس اللغة العربية — الكتاب الثاني
Durūs al-Lugha II
Madinah Arabic, Book Two
The verb enters: past, present and imperative; kāna and inna with their sisters; the dual and the numbers. The sentence stops being a label and starts being an event.
6 lessons
The set text
- دروس اللغة العربية لغير الناطقين بهاDurūs al-Lughat al-ʿArabiyya li-Ghayr al-Nāṭiqīna bihā (the Madinah books)
Three graded books that teach the language from the first sentence to the beginnings of iʿrāb, with no translation and no English crutch.
By the end of it
- Conjugate a sound triliteral verb in the past and present through all fourteen persons.
- Build a verbal sentence and identify its fāʿil and its mafʿūl bihi.
- Apply kāna and inna to a nominal sentence and say what each does to its two parts.
Lessons
الفعل الماضيThe past-tense verb
Kataba, katabā, katabū… The verb is drilled as a table, and the doer of the act — the fāʿil — is put in rafʿ from the first sentence.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 1–4.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالفَاعِلThe doer (grammatical subject of a verb)
الفعل المضارعThe present-tense verb
Yaktubu, with its four prefixes (a-, na-, ya-, ta-) collected in anaytu. The muḍāriʿ is marfūʿ unless something enters upon it — the first hint of the nawāṣib and the jawāzim.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 5–8.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
المفعول بهThe object of the verb
The transitive verb takes a second noun, and that noun is manṣūb: qaraʾa al-ṭālibu al-kitāba. The fatḥa on the end of al-kitāba is the sign of naṣb.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 9–11.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالمَفْعُول بهThe direct objectالفَاعِلThe doer (grammatical subject of a verb)
كان وأخواتهاKāna and her sisters
Kāna enters upon the nominal sentence, raises the mubtadaʾ as her ism and puts the khabar in naṣb: kāna al-ṭālibu ḥāḍiran. With her: aṣbaḥa, amsā, ṣāra, laysa, mā zāla.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 12–14.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالمُبْتَدَأThe subject of a nominal sentenceالخَبَرThe predicate
إنّ وأخواتهاInna and her sisters
Inna does the mirror of kāna: she puts the mubtadaʾ in naṣb as her ism and leaves the khabar in rafʿ — inna al-ṭāliba mujtahidun. With her: anna, kaʾanna, lākinna, layta, laʿalla.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 15–17.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالمُبْتَدَأThe subject of a nominal sentenceالخَبَرThe predicate
المثنّى والعددThe dual and the numbers
The dual raises with alif and falls with yāʾ (ṭālibāni / ṭālibayni), and the numbers — where Arabic reverses the gender of three to ten — are drilled until the reversal stops feeling wrong.
ReadingBook 2, lessons 18–23, with revision.
Recording to followEntries this lesson definesالإعْرابCase and mood inflection
Entries covered by this course
And then
The book that hands the student over to the grammarians: the passive, the derived forms, the manṣūbāt in full, the weak verb, and the noun barred from tanwīn.
Open the course