Arabic sentence structure question?

[tomest05]

Hi ArabicPod! (Mohammed and Ehab),

I was going over some sentences in a Arabic CD that I got and I am coming across sentences that I understand the meaning but don't understand why the use ما when they do... what's the best way to translate these sentences and the purpose of the ma, in these sentences.

نادرا ما تلبس الكلاب ملابس، لكن هذا الكلب يرتدي ملابس
"Dogs rarely wear clothes, but this dog is wearing clothes"

غالبا ما يجلس الناس علىهذه.
"Majority of people sit on this"

I just don't understand the use of ما in these sentences... the sentences are asked some what in question form... you have to read the sentence and then pick a picture that best corresponds to the sentence. Is the "ma" acting as a place marker for an unknown person or object? Or is another way to negate a present tense verb? I'm a bit confused. I've never learned to use ما in that way. Thanks for any help! And Lesson 12 was a great addition!

لا ينبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا

This was another sentence I didn't fully understand... does "la yanbagee", mean something like "You should not"? So the sentence would translate to: One should never put (enter) this car in water. OR one should not put this car in water ever.

It's hard to learn Arabic without a native speaker in the middle of America!!!
Shukran!

Tomes

[Moshaya]

Hay Tomes,

We will be talking about the word ‘ma’ in some of the coming lessons. I’ll attempt to answer your question and hope Ehab or any of our users will correct me if I make a mistake. When ‘ma’ comes before a verb it negates it, in other situation it becomes ‘what’ like in:

ما هواسمك؟ - what is your name?

In the sentances you provided, i would translate them to:
نادرا ما تلبس الكلاب ملابس، لكن هذا الكلب يرتدي ملابس
“Dogs rarely don’t wear clothes, but this one is wearing clothes”

In this particular sentence I think ‘ma’ should be removed because “Dogs rarely wear clothes, but this one is wearing clothes” sounds more correct.

In the second sentence
غالبا ما يجلس الناس علىهذه
“majority of people don’t sit on this”

So ‘ma’ is another way to negate verbs, if it doesn’t come before a verb it generally means what.

Ok to your next question…
لا ينبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا

“La yanbagee’ in this sentence means “it should not”. For it to mean “you should not” it needs to be changed to “La tanbagee”. For it to mean “I should not” the sentence should be “La anbagee” So the first letter of the verb tends to signal if it’s ‘you’, ‘i’ ‘him/her’ or ‘it’.

The literal translation of the sentence is “Should not enter this car never water” The idiomatic translation is “this car should never enter this water”

Hope this helps, keep it up
Mohamed

[tomest05]

Ya Mohamed,

Thanks alot! I didn't realize that "ma" can be used to negate present tense as well. I know Arabic uses it alot for negative past tense like
ما كنت ، ما شربت
etc....
Arabic grammar is very difficult I have many books but there are so many rules they don't cover all my questions all the time! I really appreciate it! Have a great day!

tomes

[Ehab]

Tomes,, You are right !! Ma goes before the past verbs to negate it while La goes before the present verb to negate it.. So you are right.
Now, talking about Ma itself is very complicated,, I’ll simplify the things as much as possible:
- Ma can be a questioning word, i.e: Ma ismok?>> (What’s your name?)
- Ma as linking work, i.e: 7’oth ma ma3i>> (take what I have)
- Ma to negate past verbs ONLY, i.e: Ma akalto alyawm>> (I did NOT eat today)
Note: If you want to negate nouns and present verbs, then use La,, as simple as that.
Regarding to the last point about : لا ينبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا Note: La Yanba3'i
Actually it was right to say it like this,, it means: This car should not enter water ever.
But, it would be better to say: لا تنبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا : Note: La Tanba3'i

This verb تنبغي (notice it is a verb) is present tense and you apply the present tense rules on it:
- I go: Athhab (Adding the letter ‘a’)
- He goes: Yathhab (Adding the letter ‘Y’)
- She goes: Tathhab (Adding the letter ‘T’)
- We go: Nathhab: (Adding the letter ‘N’) see discussion on lesson 8: http://www.arabicpod.net/lesson.php?ID=8
.
Because the car (Seyara) is feminine, it should take La Tanbaghi,, that’s why I said it would be better to say : لا تنبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا
I hope I answered you,, I see your level in Arabic is very good,, keep going and good luck .
Ehab

[wafit]

Because the car (Seyara) is feminine, it should take La Tanbaghi,, that’s why I said it would be better to say : لا تنبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا
I hope I answered you,, I see your level in Arabic is very good,, keep going and good luck .
Ehab

*******************************************************************
وبعد
أظن أخي الحبيب أن الأصح هو ** لاينبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا ** وليس ** لا تنبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا ** لوجوب أن يكون الفعل من جنس الفاعل.. المقدر و المؤول من أن المصدرية والفعل الدي يليها * أن تدخل* حيث التؤويل المصدري يؤدي الي **دخووول** فالفعل لابرتبط من حيث الجنس بالمفعووول في حالتنا هذه ** السيارة** ولكن الفعل متلازم جنسيا cool مع الفاعل الذي تؤيله ** دخول** فلا نقووول* لا تنبغي دخول السيارة... والله أعلم
3afwan 3alaa attadakhol wa al i6naab
and @ last shukran

[/list]

[Ehab]

Jazak Allah 7'er a7'i Wafit;
You are absolutely right .. Tomes, Wafit corrects me about the use of Yanba3'i or Tanba3'i and the right way is to say Yanba3'i.

Thanks Wafit again.

Ehab

[wafit]

Jazak Allah 7'er a7'i Wafit;
You are absolutely right .. Tomes, Wafit corrects me about the use of Yanba3'i or Tanba3'i and the right way is to say Yanba3'i.

Thanks Wafit again.

Ehab

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wa jazaaka allahu 3annaa kolla khayr brother ehab
and welcome any time. then really it is my pleasure... and arabicpod.net is the best website of teaching arabic online i ever seen keep it up. ok and Allah may helps you.
regards
Wafit

[wafit]

HI Tomest05
i hope my broken english can help me to explain.. about your quetion wanna notice that "maa"
in arabic has too many fonctions and meanings:

1- we use maa for quetion and it calls "maa li3'ayri al3aqil"
like in the phrases: maa bika? maa ismoka? maa 3amaloka?.. you can consider " maa" here as shortness of the "maadaa" which mean what.

2-we use maa for negation and it calls " maa annafya "
like in the phrases: maa dakhalt. maa jaa2a Ehab. maa wajadto al-diftar. maa akalto.. maa here is a negation tool. we used it to negate verbs and there is amsp others negation tools such " lan , or lam or... "

3-we have maa al-shar6ya
like in the phrases:
4- we have maa al-masdarya
like in the phrases: maa lam ya2tii Ehab tasqo6. maa an tajtahid tanja7. maa lam ta2kol tandam. this maa here so very easy cuz it means : (( If ))
5- and we have maa al-darfya al-3omomya
hummm how i can translate this i dunno but in french it calls "" circonstancielle"" this way "maa" we use maa to mean "GENERALITY"... and your phrases are this kind of "maa"
so your frist phrace can be translated in this way
:نادرا ما تلبس الكلاب ملابس، لكن هذا الكلب يرتدي ملابس
generaly dogs rarely when wear clothes
غالبا ما يجلس الناس علي هذه
generaly majorety of ppl usally set on this.

6-..

Waw my fat brother starts eating i have to run b4 he will eat eavrything even the table... when i came back i'll translate the last one

[wafit]

لا ينبغي أن تدخل هذه السيارة الماء أبدا

This was another sentence I didn't fully understand... does "la yanbagee", mean something like "You should not"? So the sentence would translate to: One should never put (enter) this car in water. OR one should not put this car in water ever.

It's hard to learn Arabic without a native speaker in the middle of America!!!
Shukran!

i'm back
about your last quetion i ask you to look in the books you have for the rule of " i3maalo al-masdar "
and after " ta2weel al-masdar" we gonna have the phrase like this " laa yanba3'y do7'ool haadihi al-sayara al-maa2 " as you know the verb is yanba3' and it should be yanba3'y not tanba3'y... WHY???????????
becouse in arabic language the verb related to the gender of al-faa3el.. not to the al-maf3ool.
and what to do toknow where is the fa3el and where is the maf3ool in a phrase..
usally we use the quetion "maa alladii? or mani alladii? "this quetion helps you to know where is the fa3el in all arabians phrases...in our phrase '' maa alladii laa yanba3'y?" of course laa yanba3'y al-dokhol" so the fa3el is al-masdar al-mo2awal min an wa alf3el which is do7'ool and dokhool is Male IN ARABIC LANGUAGE so the verb has to be male too and we have to say la yanba3'y
i hope that i'm not confusing you and i hope that i helped

[tomest05]

الله بخير!

Thank you for all the help everyone! Wafit, Ehab, and Mohammed. I love that Arabic Pod is slowly creating a community of Arabic teachers and learners! This is a wonderful things for students and future teachers.

The blessings continue to show themselves.

Tomes

[sur]

Some say we use "maa" as negative with PAST tense verbs.
While on other places "Maa" is used as negation even with Present Tense verbs.!!!


As far as i understood , Arabic tradition of Saudi Arabia etc use maa as "NOT" ONLY with PAST tense ........ while ...... in Iraqi & Turkish Arabic it is used as "NOT" with both PAST & Present Tenses!!!???



My 2nd Qs is about adition of "Ya" to make a Present Tense Verb into "Imperfect Tense":-
Does such "Imperfect Tense" refer to Present & Future only or to all times(Past/Present/Future)?


If to Present & Future ONLY then does addition of NEGATION like "Lam" makes it PanChrinic(for all times) or it still remains for Present/Future.


Please guide.
Thx.

[wafit]

Some say we use "maa" as negative with PAST tense verbs.
While on other places "Maa" is used as negation even with Present Tense verbs.!!!


As far as i understood , Arabic tradition of Saudi Arabia etc use maa as "NOT" ONLY with PAST tense ........ while ...... in Iraqi & Turkish Arabic it is used as "NOT" with both PAST & Present Tenses!!!???.

*************************************************************************
ok maa of nigation:
i'm here gonna talk about maa of nigation .. i'm not gonna talk about others kinds of maa
so maa of nogation it is two types:

1-ما النافية التي لا عمل لها ، ودخولها على الجملة لا يؤثر فيها ، وتعرف بالتميمية
maa of nigation which doesn't work.. which known as maa Al-Tamiimia

مثال دخولها على الأفعال الماضية ،
examples from qorran that it can be used with past tense

قوله تعالى : { فما ربحت تجارتهم وما كانوا مهتدين } . 16 البقرة

وقوله تعالى : { ما اتبعوا قبلتك } . 145 البقرة

وقوله تعالى : { وما كان من المشركين } . 67 آل عمران

ومثال دخولها على الأفعال المضارعة
Examples from Qoran that used with present tense

قوله تعالى : { وما يعلمنا من أحد } . 105 البقرة

وقوله تعالى : { ما يريد الله ليجعل عليكم من حرج } . 6 المائدة

وقوله تعالى : { ما يأكلون في بطونهم إلا النار } . 174 البقرة

2-2 ـ ما النافية العاملة ، والتي يختص دخولها بالأسماء ، وتعمل عمل ليس ؛ لأنها تشبهها في نفي الحال عند الجمهور وتعرف بالحجازية .
maa of nigation which works; and it adds to nounes and it works as "layssa" it calls maa Al-7ijaazya

examples from Qoraan that it used with nounes

نحو قوله تعالى : { ما هذا بشر } . 31 يوسف
وقوله تعالى : { ما هن أمهاتهم } . 2 المجادلة

[minisuper]

That is so wanderful,I like it so much, thank you!


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[daavidfischer]

I have always wanted to learn the Arabic language structure, but it just confuses me a lot. It would be great if anyone could suggest some institute to learn the language in a thorough manner.











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DAVID FISCHER