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العربية Arabic
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Afro-Asiatic	Central Semitic	Saudi Arabia, Syria, and 23 other countries. United Nations	عربي Arabic

Verbs are words that specify a certain action and a time where the action took place. Accordingly, Arabic verbs are divided into 3 basic categories: past (الماضي), present (المضارع) and imperative (الأمر).

The Past Tense

The past tense verb indicates that an action has already happened. Generally, it is formed by combining the root and adding a fatHa on each letter. Ex. دَرَسَ (he studied), عَمَلَ (he worked), أَكَلَ (he ate).

The Present Tense

Verbs in the present begin with ت، ي، ن or أ. These letters at the beginning of the present verb are subject markers. أ is for 1st person singular. نـ is for first person plural. تـ is for both 2nd person and 3rd person feminine. يـ is for 3rd person masculine.

Ex. يَفعَلُ (he does), يَدرُسُ (he studies), يَعمَلُ (he works), يَأكُلُ (he eats)

The present tense also have certain preposition that can come before: سـ (to indicate near future), سوف (to indicate far future), قد (to indicate unsureness.)

Ex. سيأكل/سوف يأكل (he will eat), قد يأكل (he might eat)

The Imperative

Since each verb type will refer to a certain time, and we already talked about the past and present, what's left is the future. Other than the future tense that we can construct using the present, the imperative is also a form of future tense since the action won't take place until the subject who was commanded does what he's told to do. Ex. اعمل! (work!), ادرس! (study!), كل! (eat!).

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Introduction · Articles · Gender · Plurality · Adpositions · Pronouns · Sounds and Writing · Syntax · Verbs