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- "اَلْمُهَنْدِسة مُهَنْدِسة."
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362
Strange sentence. It is obvious that an engineer is an engineer.Does this mean anything specific in Arabic?
@Nai - this is to let people who pay attention learn grammar. Remember this the next time the 76th person asks why "The engineer is good?" and why not "The good engineer"?
@nvrslps The good Engineer = المهندسة الجيدة The Engineer is good = المهندسة جيدة i.e. if the Adjective is in the same gender, number and definiteness as the Noun (both Engineer and Good are definite / have an 'Al'; are singular; and are feminine) then the adjective defines the noun. Ergo, "The good Engineer". When you put an indefinite adjective after a definite noun, then the adjective does not define the noun. (Because remember the above, the adjective has to have the same gender, number and definiteness to define the noun). The Definite Noun + Indefinite adjective then becomes "The Noun is adjective". Hence the second sentence above = "The Engineer is good". Hope this makes sense, and is of help.
No.
But this is a typical way of teaching on duolingo.
Google "wierd Duolingo sentences"
This is probably a way to make us understand the structure of nominal clauses regardless of the actual content of the sentence.
Many things. A good engineer, a boss, a student, your neighbour, an American, a Briton, an Indian....
When people see sentences like
المهندسة مهندسة جيدة
they ask why does this not mean "The good engineer"?
Some would be perplexed why "muhandisa" is repeated, and why one has "Al" and other doesn't?
But if you are solid on the grammar of the given sentence "The engineer is an engineer", you won't have any doubts or issues with the more difficult variants.
That's what I think.
after being introduced to two engineers who turned out to be a fake or imposters, one might happily exclaim that if the third engineer finally is an engineer.
