"هٰذا باب ثَقيل."
Translation:This is a heavy door.
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"This door is heavy" is what I wrote, but the answer is "This is a heavy door" ...what's the difference and how do I know which is which?
It actually is different. In English we don't use a case system, so it isn't obvious. But in the Arabic sentence, 'door' is the object. In your English sentence, 'door' is the subject. In English it doesn't matter, but in Arabic it technically does. 'this door is heavy' would be 'هذا الباب ثقيل'. Notice that door has the definite article el-. This connects it to 'this' and tells us that the door is still part of the subject in the sentence. Without the definite article, the subject is merely 'هذا' and we understand the door to be part of the object. I hope this helps.
1015
Thank you. Good explanation, but I believe you should substitute "predicate" or "complement" for "object".
Thats good to see, i just left a comment about this, but your response answers it
For Italian speaker it the same. the phases "This door is heavy" and "This is a heavy door" have different subject "door" in the first, and "this" in the second. But studying arabic across english some times can create misconfusion
"This is a door" = "هذا باب" "This door is" = "هذا الباب". Correct me if I am wrong. The definite article must be used in order to specify a subject here.
I tend to translate this "this door is heavy." Is that wrong? If so, why?
It would help to know what in the Arabic reqires using the Englis indefinite article. I don't see why This door is heavy
