14 Comments
Someone forgot to add the " ٌ " diacritic to the end of the word "garage"/"كراج"; with the way it's pronounced right now, it should be written like this "كراجٌ". The " ٌ " adds an "-un" sound to the end of a word. Now I'll just let someone more expert than me explain when this diacritic should be used. But know that it's not that strict, and in everyday use it can be dropped.
I think in Arabic when a noun is indefinite it has a -un attached to the end of it.
Are adjectives generally placed after the noun? (I said "after" because of the right-to-left directionality)
According to some of the Duo tips, yes. I'm trying to figure out the -un or whatever endings on some words that I don't see anywhere in the tips...
145
Yes, an adjective always come after the noun it modifies.
The -un you hear is the case ending of an indefinite noun in the nominative case.
Nouns and their adjectives always share the same case. So even though Duolingo does not enunciate the case ending for the adjective, Arabic grammar still says it's there. (In spoken colloquial Arabic, case endings are rarely enunciated for either the noun or the adjective.)
Not only do nouns and their adjectives share the same case, but they share definiteness. That is, if the noun's indefinite, then so is the adjective that modifies it. If the noun's definite, then so is its adjective.
A definite noun and its adjective (when in the nominative) would take an "al" prefix and an "-u" case ending. So, like this:
karaajun kabiirun = A big garage
al-karaaju al-kabiiru = The big garage
kitaabun kabiirun = A big book
al-kitaabu al-kabiiru = The big book
Again, keep in mind that Duolingo does not appear to enunciate the case ending on the adjective. And as noted above, case endings are rarely enunciated in spoken colloquial Arabic. But they are used in MSA and fusha.
Also, when the noun/adjective is in the genetive or accusative case, they will take different case endings ("i" and "a""). But you'll learn that in due time.
- 35
What is the difference in pronunciation and use between ً and ٌ ? Is this "nunation" used with proper nouns and is it used with all nouns in a sequence e.g. Rawadun, Georgeun, wa Carrieun?
- 145
I don't understand the first part of your question. As to the second part: Every noun is either definite or indefinite. It doesn't matter whether it's part of a sequence ("al-bintu, al-waladu, wa kalbun" = "The girl, The boy and A dog") or is the single subject of a sentence.
Proper nouns are, by definition, always definite. Some have the al- prefix (al-qahiratu = Cairo, al-maanyaa = Germany) and some don't (masr = Egypt; turkiyaa = Turkey). As such, they would never take nunation.
So to use your example:
Rawad, George wa Carrie fi masr = Rawad, George and Carri (are*) in Egypt
(*In Arabic, the verb "to be" is implied.)
I hope that's helpful.
- 35
Thanks Scott. I already found out the answers to the first part: that ً is pronounced "-in" and is a grammatical marker of the genitive/possessive case and that ٌ is pronounced "-un" and is a grammatical marker of the nominative/subjective case.
- 302
Even though we learned the right pronunciation is "KAraaj unKAbiir" it seems to me the right pronunciation sounds more like "KEraaj unKEbiir" ... what's going on here? Is the voice something in the middle of A/E ?
Is this read karaajun kabiir and the -un is wrongly left out or it this suffix can be implicit?
This confused the hell out of me because i was able to relate the writing to garage due to the similar sound but not the rest of it.
