Prepositions – حُرُوفُ الْجَرِّ
- In this lesson we will learn three new prepositions. We have learnt that prepositions are the words used to connect two or more words or sentences (Lesson No.4 section 3) and (Lesson No.6 section 6). These prepositions are:
| English | Pronunciation | Arabic |
| About | Ξan | عِنْ |
| With | Maξa | مَعَ |
| At/In | Bi | بِـ |
- The preposition عَنْ means “about” or “from” e.g. يَتَحَدَّثُ عَنْ means (to talk about), and بَعِيدٌ عَنْ means (far from)
- The preposition مَعَ means “with”, e.g. الْكِتَابُ مَعَ الطَّالِبِ means “the book is with the student”.
- The letter بِـ means “at” or “in” e.g., if we say هُوَ بِالْجَامِعَةِ it means “He is at the university” or هِيَ بِالْمَطْبَخِ it means “she is in the kitchen.”
| English | Transliteration | Arabic |
| My house is far from the mosque | Baitī baξīdun ξan al masjidi | بَيْتِي بَعِيدٌ عَنْ الْمَسْجِدِ. |
| Ahmad is sitting with Khalid | Ahmadu jalisun ma’a Khalidin | أَحْمَدُ جَالِسٌ مَعَ خَالِدٍ. |
| With me is a friend | Ma’ee sadeequn | مَعِي صَدِيقٌ. |
| Khalid is talking about himself | khâlidun yataħaddathu ξan nafsihi | خَالِدٌ يَتَحَدَّثُ عَنْ نَفْسِهِ. |
| My friend in Egypt – his name is Ahmed | Ŝadīqī bimiŝra ismuhu aħmadu | صَدِيقِي بِمِصْرَ اسْمُهُ أَحْمَدُ. |
- It must be remembered that “مَعَ” meaning ‘to have’ should only be used with the things that are separable, e.g. مَعَنَا كِتَابٌ means “we have a book”. It should not be used with relations and parts of the body. So if we want to say ‘He has a nose’, we should say لَهُ أَنْفٌ instead of مَعَهُ أَنْفٌ or لَهَا أُخْتٌ meaning she has a sister, instead of مَعَهَا أُخْتٌ. The preposition مَعَ takes a fatħah on its ending when used with all the pronouns except ي meaning “with me”. When used with ي, it takes a kasrah instead of the fatħah so it will become مَعِي so we say مَعِي كِتَابٌ and not مَعَي كِتابٌ