"هُوَّ ابْنِك يا سامْية."

Translation: He is your son, Samia.

[Hsn626796]

Huwwa•bnik ya Samya (with the diacritics and germination they put)
(Is Egyptian colloquial Arabic)

هوَ ابنُكِ يا سامية
( is Standard/Qur'anic Arabic )

[ArabicFrench]

Qur'anic Arabic is really the best reference to determine whether a sentence follows Arabic's grammatical rules or not

[Away54]

ArabicFrench,

Without any doubt :)) Quranic Arabic version is the best ever

[KatieC993112]

Without any doubt? :)
In standard English, "without no doubt" = with (some) doubt

[Away54]

KatieC993112,

Thanks a lot for your correction. I've edited the word. And, here's a lingot for you :)

[saudamcgah2]

My problem is that the hyphen are so small I can hardly see the differed between feminine and masculine, can they make it a big bigger?

[SadiHamutcu]

Is this not qur'anic arabic(fusHa)? Because there are too many mistakes like that, according to original arabic. For instance that word must be ''huvabnuki" not "huvabnike". I learned it like this, previously. Is it dialect or something? I didn't understand.

[ArabicFrench]

Reportedly it is Middle Eastern dialect (Egypt?)
In North African's dialect (Algeria), we don't say that way

[professorleah]

Is there a difference (grammatically) between ابنَك and ابنِك? I saw Hsn626796’s helpful response above, but I’m still not clear.

[dfrh.jpg]

If I understood it correctly, "ابنَك" is the form used when you're talking to a male who has a son, and "ابنِك" when you're talking to a female who has a son. The pronoun forms "you/your" are gender neutral in English, but in Arabic you have different forms of "you" depending on the gender of your interlocutor. But other users have pointed out that the vowels chosen by Duolingo are not appropriated in current dialects or standard Arabic.

[ArabicFrench]

It is not a question of gender here, but a question of whether "son" is the subject of the sentence or not.
- In our case, "son" is the subject, so the correct form is "ibnUk"
- It could have been 'ibnAk" if "son" was the object (ex: you saw people: "وَرَأَيْتَ النَّاسَ")
- A word lasts with "I" after some prepositions like:
Major prepositions:
li - لِـ = to (in order to) / bi - بِـ = with, by means of / ka - كَـ = like (for comparison) / fî - في = in / min - مِنْ = from (origin or material) / 3an - عَنْ = about, regarding /alâ - عَلى = on / 'ilâ - إِلى = to (destination) / Hattâ - حَتَّى = until / wa - وَ : and
Other prepositions:
/mundu - مُنْذُ : since / ma3a - مَعَ = with / 3inda - عِنْدَ = to localize an object that someone possess: "عِنْدَ الْوَلَدِ كُرةٌ" means the boy has a ballon
Link (in French): https://monsieurboursier.fr/arabe/grammaire/particule/preposition.html

• As to the gender, what changes is not the vowel of the noun but he vowel of the pronoun targeted, so here the letter "k" Translation of "your apple": For a female: tufahatuki For a male: tufahatuka It follows the same logic as "Anti" (you for female) or "Anta" (you for male)

[RajasDaithankar]

@ArabicFrench - you are 100% correct. Ibnuka = your son (nominative, when addressing a male); Ibnuki = your son (nominative, when addressing a female). But that's in fusHa or MSA.
But @Prof.David is also correct. In spoken dialects, the fatHa or the kasra on the kaf (Ibnuka or Ibnuki; denoting whether addressing a male or female), is shifted to the final consonant of the noun itself and it becomes Ibnaka = your son, when talking to a male or Ibnika = your son, when talking to a female.
This makes the noun's case indeterminate. But hey, this is spoken dialect now. Convenience matters more than 100% exact grammar! :-)

[ArabicFrench]

Thank you very much, as a North African dialect speaker I really did not know that rule of Middle Eastern dialect! (in our dialect sometimes we don't even bother to make the grammatical difference between a male or a female x) )
It really shows to what extent fusHa Arabic and dialects are very different! Thanks

[KatieC993112]

Thank you very much, Rajas Daithankar, for explaining this so well. Other contributors have simply criticised Duolingo and corrected eg ibnak/ibnik to ibnuka/ibnuki without explaining why, leaving us ignoramuses in the dark and puzzled why Duolingo was teaching us "wrong". But now that we know the reason for it, we all feel much happier.

[Arjuna973384]

Agreed. Thanks both for clearing that up!

[Notorious791]

This entire chain was really helpful

[professorleah]

Thank you!

[hadi949111]

In fusHa it should be هو ابنُكَ . هو ابنُكِ

[Tahsin777]

So in standard, I think it would be either 'ibnuka' or 'ibnuki' (In this case ibnuki).

[KostasVizantinos]

Why? the right one have to be
هو ابنُكِ يا سامية

[JudithMett2]

I find it difficult to choose the correct arabic for 'your son'. Not sure what it has to agree with when choosing.

[CorporalNewkirk]

I believe it should agree with the person you are talking to (in this case, Samia, so it takes the feminine ending)

[ArabicFrench]

It should also agree with the grammatical function (whether the noun is the subject or the object) and whether the noun is followed by a particular preposition

[dfrh.jpg]

Are nouns with possessive suffix treated as definite in Arabic?

[RajasDaithankar]

@Prof.David - yes. Possessive suffix makes the noun definite.

[cv_80]

Why is ibnak wrong? Why is "inclusive language" sometimes good and sometimes wrong?

[ArashG]

I have a pronunciation question in regards to where the stress is placed in هُوَّ ابْنُكِ (note that I'm focusing on the MSA form):

Is the correct way of enunciating it 'huwWA-bnuki' or 'huwwa-bNUki'?
Personally I'm strongly leaning towards the former.

Any help would be appreciated.

[MaxThePilot]

The audio almost sounds like it is a question, like: Is he? Rather than He is.

[RajasDaithankar]

But there is no question word in the sentence. Grammar :-).

[MaxThePilot]

Exactly! But I hear an inflection in the audio, so that tripped me out a bit