Lesson 1 – الدَّرْسُ الأوَّلُ
This is… – هَـٰذَا…
Introduction – مُقَدِّمَةٌ
- Please read the sentences below. After completing the sentences we shall go over the rules for this lesson.
- In Part 1 of Lesson 1 we learn how to use the pronoun هَـٰذَا which means ‘This’ (called the demonstrative pronoun in grammar). /Hādhā/ is pronounced هَاذَا but is written without the first /alif/. The second word is the noun (object) being referred to, e.g.: بَيْتٌ means house.
Please click on the words to hear speech, i.e. how the words should be pronounced.
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هَـٰذَا كِتَابٌ. |
هَـٰذَا مَسْجِدٌ. |
هَـٰذَا بَابٌ. |
هَـٰذَا بَيْتٌ. |
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This is a book |
This is a mosque |
This is a door |
This is a house |
- Arabic has no word which is equal to the English word “is” which is referred to as a “copula” in grammar. We can see this rule demonstrated above where we see the words for هَـٰذَا and the noun/predicate مَسْجِدٌ being referred to without any copula. i.e. هَـٰذَا مَسْجِدٌ If read literally this sentence would read “This a mosque”, however, the word “is” can be implied in this sentence so that it reads “This is a mosque”.
- There is no word in Arabic corresponding to “a” in English as in: “This is a book”. The n-sound, i.e. the /tanwīn/ (doubled vowel sign) at the end of the Arabic noun (kitābu-n, baitu-n, masĴidu-n) is the Arabic indefinite article corresponding to the English “a/an”.
Please click on the button for part 2 below to move onto the next section where we will practice this principle further In-Shā’-Allâh (God-willing).