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Arabic (Levantine) Grammar Guide

Welcome to the Elon.io Arabic (Levantine) Grammar Guide. 698 topics across every area of Arabic (Levantine) grammar, tagged by CEFR level so you can find the right page for your level.

A192 pagesA2207 pagesB1188 pagesB2113 pagesC177 pagesC221 pages

Start Here (A1)

New to Arabic (Levantine)? These are the foundation topics every beginner needs.

Learner Paths

CEFR Routes

Adjectives

Agreement and Position

  • Adjectives after the NounA1 — Place ordinary Lebanese adjectives after their nouns and distinguish attributive phrases, predicates, marked evaluations, and adjective ellipsis.
  • Masculine and Feminine Adjective FormsA1 — Form and use masculine and feminine Lebanese adjectives, including the common -e/-a suffix, vowel changes, and irregular color pairs.
  • Adjective Plurals in Lebanese ArabicB1 — Choose lexical broken plurals, productive -īn forms, or invariant loans and apply human versus nonhuman plural agreement in Lebanese.
  • Definiteness Agreement in Attributive PhrasesA1 — Distinguish bare and definite attributive adjectives from predicate adjectives through Lebanese article agreement.
  • Agreement with Nonhuman PluralsB1 — Choose feminine-singular or plural agreement with Lebanese nonhuman plurals according to grouping, salience, animacy, and style.
  • Agreement with Human PluralsA2 — Use plural adjectives and pronouns with human groups, including mixed groups, collectives, and gender-sensitive variants.

Classes and Comparison

Adverbs

Time, Manner, and Degree

  • Time Adverbs and Their PositionA1 — Place Lebanese اليوم, هلق, بكرا, مبارح, and بعدين according to time reference, discourse frame, and information focus.
  • Frequency AdverbsA2 — Express how often something happens with Lebanese دايما, عادة, أوقات, نادرا, and negative أبدا while controlling habitual aspect and negation scope.
  • Manner Adverbs and Adverbial PhrasesA2 — Describe how actions happen with invariant adjective-like forms, بـ phrases, lexical adverbs, and conventional repetition.
  • Degree Words: كتير, شوي, هالقد, and MoreA2 — Use Lebanese degree words to intensify, soften, measure quantities and events, and distinguish ordinary scales from natural endpoints.
  • Place and Direction AdverbsA1 — Locate people and things with هون, هونيك, جوّا, برّا, فوق, and تحت, and turn locations into goals and sources.
  • Sentence Adverbs of Certainty and EvaluationB1 — Express certainty, possibility, frankness, expectation, and evaluation over a whole Lebanese clause.
  • Focus Adverbs and ScopeB2 — Use بس, كمان, حتى, and خصوصي by placing each focus particle beside the alternative it restricts, adds, or highlights.
  • Ordering Multiple AdverbialsC1 — Order Lebanese frame setters, manner, place, time, and degree expressions by their grammatical closeness, information status, scope, and weight.

Annotated Texts

Media and Public Discourse

Original Dialogues

  • Original Dialogue: Meeting Someone in BeirutA1 — Follow and transform an original first-meeting dialogue using greetings, identity, origin, residence, and natural leave-taking.
  • Original Dialogue: Ordering CoffeeA1 — Follow and adapt an original Beirut café exchange covering requests, coffee choices, quantities, politeness, and payment.
  • Original Dialogue: Asking the WayA2 — Follow and analyze a complete Beirut directions exchange built from وين questions, landmarks, agreeing commands, route repair, and confirmation.
  • Original Dialogue: Visiting FamilyA2 — Analyze a Lebanese family visit through kin address, possessive suffixes, hospitality offers, agreement, blessings, and reciprocal invitation.
  • Original Dialogue: At a Produce MarketA2 — Analyze a complete Lebanese produce-market exchange with weights, fictional prices, demonstratives, bargaining, packaging, totals, and object clitics.
  • Original Dialogue: Making Plans by PhoneA2 — Analyze a Lebanese phone call that checks the channel, repairs a misheard day, negotiates a time, distinguishes scheduled present from رح, and closes cleanly.
  • Original Dialogue: Describing SymptomsA2 — Analyze a low-stakes Lebanese clinic intake that reports pain and duration, answers follow-up questions, mentions an existing medicine, and asks for clear instructions.
  • Original Chat: Rescheduling a MeetingA2 — Read a complete Lebanese work chat that apologizes for a late change, gives a reason, proposes two alternatives, and confirms the revised meeting.

Original Narratives and Interactions

Traditional and Public-Domain Texts

Choosing

Core Grammar Decisions

  • b-Imperfect or عم ProgressiveA2 — Choose the b-imperfect for habits and states or عم plus b-imperfect for an event viewed inside a current temporary window.
  • Perfect Verb or Active ParticipleB1 — Choose a perfect verb to report a completed event or an active participle to profile a current state or relevant result.
  • رح Future or Present-Time FormA2 — Choose رح for an explicit future projection or a present-time form for schedules, immediate next steps, and arranged motion.
  • ما or مش for NegationA2 — Choose ما for finite events and مش for predicates or focused correction by testing what the negation takes scope over.
  • في or عند for There Is and HaveA1 — Choose bare في for existence and availability, عند for a possessor's domain, and suffixed فيـ for personal ability.
  • Iḍāfa or تبع for PossessionB1 — Choose compact iḍāfa for tightly packaged relations and analytic تبع for explicit ownership, contrast, and scope repair.
  • Definite Article or Bare NounB1 — Choose الـ for identifiable or generic reference and a bare noun for introduction, classification, and nonreferential activities.

Lexical and Structural Contrasts

Clauses & Conjunctions

Adverbial Clauses

  • لمّا: When and OnceA2 — Use Lebanese لمّا to anchor one event to another in past narratives, future plans, and recurring situations without copying English tense patterns.
  • وقت ما and WheneverB1 — Use Lebanese وقت ما for recurring, unrestricted, or freely chosen timing, and distinguish it from a single event anchored by لمّا.
  • قبل ما and بعد ماA2 — Build Lebanese before- and after-clauses with ما, choosing aspect from event order and separating full clauses from nominal time phrases.
  • لأنّو: BecauseA2 — Give causes, motivations, and supporting evidence with Lebanese لأنّو, including its pronoun-like endings and its relation to ليش and لهيك.
  • Purpose Clauses with لـ and كرمالB1 — Express intended goals with attached لـ or explicit كرمال, tracking the purpose actor, beneficiary readings, negation, and register.
  • Result Clauses and So-MeaningsB1 — Choose Lebanese فـ, لهيك, هيك, and لدرجة إنو according to whether you mean a consequence, an inference, a next step, or a degree result.
  • مع إنّو: AlthoughB1 — Use Lebanese مع إنو to concede a fact while asserting an outcome that runs against the expectation it normally creates.
  • إذا: Open ConditionsA2 — Build real, open, habitual, and predictive Lebanese conditions with إذا, including perfect-form protases, future results, and imperative results.
  • لو: Hypothetical and Counterfactual ConditionsC1 — Use Lebanese لو to distance a condition from reality, from low-probability possibilities to present unreal situations, past counterfactuals, wishes, and regret.
  • Unless and Except IfB2 — Use Lebanese إلا إذا to add a conditional exception, and distinguish ordinary unless clauses from ما...إلا إذا necessary-condition frames.
  • No Matter and Free-Choice ClausesC1 — Use مهما and Lebanese wh-plus-ما clauses to express free choice, exhaustive alternatives, and concessive 'no matter' meanings.

Complement Clauses

  • إنّو: That-ClausesA2 — Build Lebanese proposition complements with إنو after speech, thought, perception, and evaluation, including fused subject forms and casual omission.
  • يلّي in Fact and Evaluation ClausesB2 — Use restricted evaluative يلّي to package an accepted event as a fact, and distinguish it from ordinary إنّو complements and relative clauses.
  • Bare Imperfect ComplementsA2 — Build Lebanese verb complements without b- after desire, ability, necessity, inception, and tightly integrated motion predicates.
  • Same-Subject Verb ChainsB1 — Link wanting, trying, beginning, going, and returning to a second action performed by the same participant.
  • Different-Subject ComplementsB1 — Introduce a new actor inside Lebanese content, desire, request, and causative complements with the structure each predicate selects.
  • Direct and Indirect Reported SpeechC1 — Report Lebanese speech directly or with قال إنّو while managing pronouns, viewpoint words, tense, and the reported speaker’s voice.

Coordination

  • و: Coordination, Sequence, and Discourse ContinuityA1 — Use Lebanese و to join phrases and clauses, organize event sequences, and carry a conversation forward without overreading it as English ‘and.’
  • بس: But and Restrictive ContrastA2 — Link Lebanese clauses with adversative بس, from ordinary counterexpectation to correction, concession, and turn-initial objection.
  • أو: Or and ReformulationA2 — Use Lebanese أو for alternatives, questions, approximation, self-repair, and free choice while letting context determine inclusive or exclusive readings.
  • يا...يا and Either–OrB1 — Frame balanced Lebanese alternatives with paired يا...يا across nouns and clauses, using focus and intonation to signal an exhaustive choice.
  • فـ and Resultative SequencingB1 — Use attached Lebanese فـ to present a tightly following event, consequence, or inference, and distinguish it from neutral additive و.

Common Mistakes

Arabic-System Confusions

English Transfer

  • Adding an English Copula in Present ClausesA2 — Remove English-style am, is, and are from ordinary Lebanese present descriptions while preserving focus, negation, agreement, and time.
  • Adding Do-Support in Questions and NegationA2 — Remove invented do-support from Lebanese questions, negatives, and short answers while preserving the lexical predicate and normal word order.
  • Overusing Independent Subject PronounsA2 — Repair English-like pronoun repetition by letting Lebanese agreement carry a continuing subject and reserving overt pronouns for real discourse work.
  • Putting Adjectives before NounsA2 — Repair English adjective-first phrases by building neutral Lebanese descriptions from the noun outward and recognizing marked fronting separately.
  • Copying English a and theA2 — Repair article transfer by choosing Lebanese reference, genericity, classification, and institutional patterns instead of translating English determiners.
  • Translating English Prepositions Word for WordA2 — Repair English preposition calques by learning Lebanese lexical frames, complement shapes, time chunks, and intact wh-prepositional phrases.
  • Fronting Every Wh-WordA2 — Repair English-style question templates by learning which Lebanese wh-items front neutrally, remain in place, or move late only in echo and repair.
  • Mapping English Tenses One to OneB1 — Repair English tense transfer by choosing Lebanese forms for events, habits, ongoing scenes, result states, durations, and futures.

Pragmatics and Variation

Complex Grammar

Advanced Clause Architecture

Information Structure and Ellipsis

Rhetoric and Interface Phenomena

Countries & Culture

Language and Society

Levantine Contexts

  • Language Life in LebanonA2 — Understand how Lebanese Arabic, MSA, French, and English share social space without reducing Lebanon to one accent.
  • Language Life in SyriaB1 — Recognize Syrian Arabic as a network of urban, coastal, interior, and mobile repertoires rather than one national accent.
  • Language Life in PalestineB1 — Recognize urban, rural, Bedouin-linked, contact, and diaspora Palestinian repertoires without treating one feature as an identity test.
  • Language Life in JordanB1 — Understand Amman leveling, Transjordanian and Palestinian repertoires, Bedouin-linked systems, and formal Arabic by domain.
  • Levantine Arabic in Global DiasporasB1 — Understand heritage transmission, contact languages, Arabizi, family accommodation, and return visits without deficit labels.

Definiteness & Determiners

Core Reference

Distribution

Demonstratives & Relatives

Demonstratives

Relative Clauses

Discourse Markers

Connecting and Stance

  • فـ and يعني in Narrative FlowC1 — Use Lebanese فـ, يعني, and فيعني to move from an event to its consequence, interpretation, summary, or a carefully planned next turn.
  • بس as a Turn-Initial Objection or PivotC1 — Use turn-initial Lebanese بس to object, qualify, interrupt, mitigate, or pivot while distinguishing it from restrictive ‘only’ and final ‘enough.’
  • ما هيك and Shared-Assumption ChecksB2 — Use Lebanese ما هيك to seek confirmation, recruit agreement, or challenge a shared assumption, with response and intonation patterns that manage social pressure.
  • أصلا for Background and CounteringB2 — Use Lebanese أصلا to reactivate a prior reason, contradict an assumption, dismiss a proposal, reframe a topic, or build an ironic counterpoint.
  • بالنهاية and Summative MarkersB2 — Use Lebanese بالنهاية to close an argument, state a bottom line, report a narrative outcome, or outweigh a concession without reducing it to one English gloss.
  • Chains of Discourse MarkersC1 — Combine Lebanese discourse markers in a meaningful order to acknowledge, pivot, reformulate, and layer stance without filling every pause.

Managing Turns and Topics

Expressions & Collocations

Core Predicate Families

  • عمل CollocationsB1 — Choose natural Lebanese عمل combinations for tasks, creation, mistakes, exercise, events, services, and light-verb meanings.
  • أخد CollocationsB1 — Use Lebanese أخد naturally for transport, medicine, decisions, photos, breaks, duration, and fixed prepositional frames.
  • عطى CollocationsB1 — Build natural Lebanese عطى expressions for permission, advice, attention, value, communication, and caused effects.
  • حطّ CollocationsB1 — Use Lebanese حطّ for placement, adding, setting, mental frames, applied items, and established prepositional expressions.
  • صار CollocationsB1 — Distinguish Lebanese صار as become, happen, begin, be possible, and mark elapsed time in conversation and narrative.
  • بد Expressions for Wants, Needs, and Time RequiredA2 — Use Lebanese بدّ with person suffixes for desire, intention, orders, required amounts, duration, and negative preference.

Everyday Frames

  • Greeting and Leave-Taking SequencesA1 — Build complete Lebanese openings and closings from reusable greeting, return, check-in, welcome, and leave-taking frames.
  • Café and Restaurant FramesA1 — Order, specify, check, repair, and pay in urban Lebanese by extending a small set of productive service frames.
  • Shopping, Prices, and BargainingA2 — Build natural Lebanese shopping exchanges for availability, sizes, prices, negotiation, purchase decisions, and polite exits.
  • Asking for and Giving DirectionsA2 — Use Lebanese landmark phrases, agreeing imperatives, route sequences, distance estimates, and clarification checks to navigate naturally.
  • Phone Calls and Voice MessagesA2 — Open, identify, route, repair, return, and close Lebanese phone calls and voice messages with natural verb frames and clitics.
  • Health and Bodily-State ExpressionsA2 — Describe pain, symptoms, duration, affected people, pharmacy needs, advice, and recovery wishes in careful everyday Lebanese.

Social and Cultural Domains

Negation

Core Predicate Negation

Scope and Negative Expressions

Nouns

Advanced Noun Structure

  • Apposition, Titles, and RenamingB2 — Place titles, kinship labels, names, and explanatory noun phrases together when they identify the same person or thing.
  • Lexical Compounds beyond IḍāfaC1 — Recognize fixed noun combinations, borrowed compounds, and the lexical choices that control their articles, plurals, gender, and pronunciation.
  • Noun Ellipsis and Recoverable HeadsC1 — Omit a noun when its gender, number, and identity remain recoverable from adjectives, demonstratives, and the conversation.

Gender and Form

Plural and Countability

  • Sound Masculine and Feminine PluralsA2 — Learn when Lebanese nouns take spoken -īn or -āt plurals, how stems adjust, and why gender alone cannot predict the plural.
  • Broken Plurals: How to Learn ThemA2 — Learn the recurring shapes of Lebanese broken plurals while treating each noun–plural pair as vocabulary used in context.
  • Human and Nonhuman Plural BehaviorB1 — Understand why human plurals strongly select plural agreement while nonhuman plurals vary between plural and feminine-singular agreement in Lebanese.
  • Collective and Unit NounsB1 — Distinguish Lebanese nouns for a kind or undivided quantity from related unit nouns that pick out one countable member.
  • Count, Mass, and Measure NounsB2 — Choose between count nouns, bare substances, measures, containers, and coerced portion readings in urban Lebanese.
  • Plurals of Plurals and Lexical ReanalysisC1 — Recognize historically layered Arabic plurals while learning their specialized Lebanese meanings and registers as independent lexical items.

Numbers & Quantification

Cardinal Numbers

Practical Number Use

  • Ordinal NumbersA2 — Use Lebanese ordinal forms for sequence, floors, rankings, and first-of-the-month dates with correct gender and article placement.
  • Clock Time in Lebanese ArabicA1 — Ask and tell the time in Lebanese Arabic using colloquial hour forms, fractions, exact minutes, and day-part labels.
  • Dates, Years, and DecadesA2 — Say and write Lebanese dates using day-month order, Lebanon's month names, chunked years, and conversational decade expressions.
  • Prices, Lebanese Currency, and Large SumsA2 — Read prices in Lebanese lira and US dollars, build currency phrases correctly, and negotiate exact or approximate amounts.
  • Fractions, Percentages, and RatiosB1 — Express halves, thirds, quarters, productive fractions, percentages, and ratios in everyday and careful Lebanese.
  • Phone Numbers, Addresses, and CodesA1 — Read digit strings, give Lebanese addresses and floor numbers, and confirm phone numbers and codes without ambiguity.
  • Distributive and Repeated QuantitiesC1 — Distribute quantities across people, groups, turns, time periods, and rate units in precise Lebanese.
  • Approximation, Ranges, and AboutC1 — Choose between حوالي, تقريبا, شي, and explicit ranges while preserving Lebanese number grammar and pragmatic precision.

Quantifiers

Participles & Verbal Nouns

Active Participles

Passive Participles

Verbal Nouns

  • The Maṣdar in Lebanese ArabicA2 — Use Lebanese verbal nouns as real nouns for actions, events, states, and results, with natural arguments, complements, counting, and register.
  • Form I MaṣdarsB1 — Learn unpredictable Form I verbal nouns as principal parts, with their frequent shapes, noun gender, plurals, specialized meanings, and register.
  • Maṣdars of Derived FormsB1 — Learn how urban Lebanese builds and actually uses the verbal nouns of Forms II–X, including regular patterns, colloquial pronunciation, and lexical exceptions.
  • Arguments of Verbal NounsB2 — Learn how Lebanese maṣdars express agents, patients, themes, and prepositional complements—and how speakers resolve their built-in ambiguities.
  • Choosing a Maṣdar or Finite ClauseB2 — Choose naturally between a compact maṣdar phrase and a finite Lebanese clause according to subject reference, time, negation, and register.
  • Instance and Manner NominalsC1 — Understand Lebanese nouns that package one occurrence or a characteristic manner, including productive tendencies, lexicalized meanings, and strict limits.
  • Nominalization in Professional and Media SpeechC1 — Use and unpack maṣdar-heavy Lebanese in meetings, reports, and media while preserving clear participants, time, and natural spoken syntax.

Particles

Aspect and Modality

  • عم: Progressive and Discourse ParticleA1 — Use Beirut عم with the b-imperfect for unfolding events, temporary phases, negation, and interactional scene management.
  • رح: Future MarkerA1 — Use invariant رح with an agreeing bare imperfect for Lebanese predictions, intentions, plans, questions, and negated futures.
  • b- as an Imperfect MarkerA1 — Recognize the attached Lebanese b-series that marks ordinary imperfect predication, use it for habits and states, and remove it in modal and future environments.
  • لـ before Bare VerbsB1 — Attach Lebanese لـ to a bare imperfect to express purpose or an intended result, track the lower subject through agreement, and distinguish verbal لـ from nominal recipient لـ.
  • لازم as a Modal ParticleA2 — Use invariant Lebanese لازم with an agreeing bare clause for obligations, situational necessity, advice, and evidence-based inference, with clear negation scope.
  • ممكن as a Possibility and Request ParticleA2 — Use Lebanese ممكن for uncertain possibilities, permission, and polite requests, with bare agreeing verbs, intonation-sensitive force, and clear negation scope.

Focus and Stance

  • بس: Only, But, and EnoughA2 — Use Lebanese بس to restrict focus, link a contrast, close a turn, or tell someone to stop, with position and intonation controlling its scope and force.
  • كمان: Also, Again, and MoreA2 — Place Lebanese كمان to add a participant, repeat an event, request another item, or raise a degree, with context and focus determining its scope.
  • حتّى: Even and UntilB1 — Distinguish scalar حتى ‘even’ from temporal حتى ‘until,’ and choose bare حتى, لحتى, or لحد ما according to focus, endpoint, and register.
  • أصلا: Actually, Anyway, and In the First PlaceB1 — Use Lebanese أصلا to reactivate a prior premise, reject an assumption, dismiss a proposal, or reopen the frame of a conversation.
  • يعني: Meaning, I Mean, and LikeA2 — Use Lebanese يعني to state meaning, reformulate an idea, test an inference, approximate, or hold the floor without turning it into a filler in every sentence.
  • أكيد: Certainly and Of CourseA2 — Use Lebanese أكيد for strong epistemic confidence, agreement, and reassurance, while keeping certainty scope, adjective agreement, and ironic intonation distinct.
  • يمكن: Maybe and PerhapsA2 — Use Lebanese يمكن to mark a speaker's uncertainty, position it naturally, and distinguish epistemic maybe from ممكن possibility and requests.
  • بقى: Then, Now, and Consequential StanceB2 — Interpret Lebanese بقى through discourse transition, consequence, impatience, sequencing, and the prosody that turns one particle into several interactional moves.

Interactional Particles

Possession & Iḍāfa

Core Possession

Expanded Iḍāfa

  • Long Iḍāfa ChainsB1 — Build and interpret multi-noun Lebanese iḍāfa chains while controlling order, definiteness, adjective scope, and processing load.
  • Adjectives with Iḍāfa PhrasesB1 — Place adjectives after a Lebanese iḍāfa chain, match the noun they describe, and repair genuine scope ambiguity.
  • Demonstratives with IḍāfaB1 — Point to an entire Lebanese iḍāfa phrase or to its possessor while keeping agreement, definiteness, and sentence structure distinct.
  • Material, Purpose, and Type CompoundsB1 — Use Lebanese iḍāfa compounds for what something is made of, used for, or classified as, without mistaking every chain for ownership.
  • Measures, Containers, and ContentsB1 — Build Lebanese container–content and measure–substance phrases such as كاسة مي and كيلو تفاح, with the right head, number, and definiteness.
  • Partitive and Quantifier ConstructionsB2 — Refer to members, subsets, and proportions with واحد من, كتير من, أغلب, and related Lebanese quantifier patterns.
  • Verbal-Noun Iḍāfa and Argument RolesB2 — Interpret Lebanese verbal-noun chains by distinguishing agents, patients, themes, and prepositional arguments, then rephrase when roles remain ambiguous.
  • Attachment and Scope in Complex IḍāfaC1 — Interpret and disambiguate Lebanese iḍāfa chains when adjectives, relatives, coordination, or lexical relations support competing parses.

Pragmatics

Conversation Structure

Politeness and Social Action

Stance and Interpersonal Meaning

Prepositions

Core Spatial Relations

  • بـ: In, At, With, and ByA1 — Use attached بـ for location, instruments, transport, manner, and the lexical frames that select it in Lebanese Arabic.
  • في: In and There IsA1 — Distinguish existential في, suffixed locative or instrumental فيـ, and modal فيـ in the Beirut system.
  • على: On, To, and AboutA1 — Use على for support, destinations, responsibility, selected topics, and obligation-like relations, including its irregular suffix forms.
  • لـ: To, For, and BelongingA1 — Use لـ for recipients, beneficiaries, purposes, belonging, and deadlines, with the Lebanese إلـ suffix forms.
  • من: From, Of, and ThanA1 — Use من for sources, materials, partitives, causes, and comparisons, with natural connected pronunciation and suffix forms.
  • مع: With and Having on One's PersonA1 — Use Lebanese مع for accompaniment, interaction, and things or resources presently with someone, while distinguishing it from عند and instrumental بـ.
  • عند: At, With, and PossessionA1 — Use Lebanese عند for a person's or institution's place, general possession and access, appointments and obligations, and habitual locations.
  • تحت and فوق: Below and AboveA2 — Use Lebanese تحت and فوق for vertical location and paths, distinguish فوق from contact على, and extend both words to hierarchy, pressure, and thresholds.
  • قدّام and ورا: In Front of and BehindA2 — Use Lebanese قدام and ورا for front–back location, public presence, sequence, pursuit, and discourse perspectives such as what lies ahead or behind an action.
  • بين and حدّ: Between, Among, and BesideA2 — Use Lebanese بين for relations across two or more members and حد for adjacency, including comparisons, social relations, pronoun suffixes, and regional alternatives.

Time and Abstract Relations

  • قبل and بعد: Before and AfterA2 — Order Lebanese events, people, and time periods with قبل and بعد, including noun complements, clauses with ما, and suffixed forms.
  • من...لـ and Time RangesA2 — Build Lebanese from-to ranges for hours, dates, routes, and abstract transfers while making endpoint inclusion explicit when it matters.
  • لحدّ: Until and Up ToA2 — Mark temporal, spatial, and degree limits with Lebanese لحد, including لحد ما clauses and the contrast between continuation and deadlines.
  • صارلـ: For and Since DurationsB1 — Measure an ongoing Lebanese duration with صار plus a dative suffix, and control questions, negation, present-perfect transfer, and past reference points.
  • عن: About, Away from, and On Behalf ofA2 — Use Lebanese عن for topics, separation, representation, and verb-selected frames, with suffixed forms and natural question structure.
  • متل: Like and AsA2 — Use Lebanese متل for resemblance, examples, roles, manner, and suffixed comparisons without copying English frames.
  • بلا and بدون: WithoutA2 — Choose Lebanese بلا and بدون for absent participants, manner, and nominalized actions while controlling scope and register.
  • Learning Verb–Preposition FramesB2 — Learn Lebanese verbs together with their selected prepositions, suffix alternations, question forms, and meaning-changing frames.

Pronouns & Clitics

Independent Pronouns

  • Independent Subject PronounsA1 — Use the eight urban Lebanese subject pronouns for reference, contrast, and nominal predicates while keeping them distinct from attached suffixes.
  • When Subject Pronouns Are Omitted or ExpressedA1 — Let Lebanese verb marking carry a continuing subject, and express an independent pronoun for contrast, topic shifts, ambiguity, or verbless predicates.
  • Pronouns in Present Nominal SentencesA1 — Build present Lebanese sentences with a pronoun plus noun, adjective, prepositional phrase, or participle and negate them with mish.
  • Huwwe and Hiyye as Copular or Focus ElementsB2 — Distinguish ordinary subject pronouns from the third-person linker used between a subject and an identifying definite nominal predicate.
  • Generic You, They, and PeopleB1 — Choose among generic second person, reportative third plural, الواحد, الناس, and العالم according to viewpoint and social distance in Lebanese.

Object Syntax

Reference and Discourse

Suffix Pronouns

  • The Lebanese Suffix-Pronoun InventoryB1 — Map the Beirut suffix-pronoun system across nouns, verbs, and prepositions, including its major host-conditioned forms and stress effects.
  • Possessive Suffixes on NounsA2 — Attach Beirut possessive pronouns to consonant-final, feminine, vowel-final, and plural nouns, and contrast them with analytic possession.
  • Direct-Object Suffixes on VerbsB1 — Attach Beirut direct-object pronouns to perfect and imperfect verbs, including weak, geminate, and vowel-final hosts and topical doubling.
  • Pronoun Suffixes after PrepositionsB1 — Use Beirut suffixed forms of مع، من، على، في، لـ, and بـ, including their irregular stems and verb-selected meanings.
  • First-Person -i, -ni, and Host AlternationsB1 — Choose the urban Lebanese first-person suffix that matches its host: -i for possession and prepositions, -ni for verbal objects, and -na for plural reference.
  • Clitics after Vowel-Final and Weak StemsB1 — Handle the glides, restored stem segments, vowel changes, and stress shifts that appear when Lebanese clitics meet vowel-final verbs and participles.

Pronunciation

Consonant Foundations

  • Lebanese Consonant Map for English SpeakersA1 — Organize the Beirut consonant system by articulation, preserve key contrasts, and recognize regional and formal alternatives.
  • Hamza ء and Glottal StopA1 — Produce Lebanese ʾ initially, medially, and finally, and distinguish genuine hamza from urban qāf with the same sound.
  • ʿAyn عA1 — Produce Lebanese ʿayn with voiced pharyngeal constriction and preserve it in initial, intervocalic, final, and cluster contexts.
  • Emphatic H ح versus H هA1 — Distinguish Lebanese pharyngeal ḥ from ordinary h and keep both sounds clear in words and connected Beirut speech.
  • Khāʾ خ and Ghayn غB1 — Produce and distinguish Lebanese kh and gh as a voiceless–voiced pair without replacing them with English stops, h, or r.
  • Emphatic ص ض ط ظ and Vowel ColoringB1 — Produce Lebanese emphatic consonants with tongue-body retraction and hear how they color neighboring vowels across a word.
  • Urban Lebanese Qāf as ʾA1 — Pronounce written qāf as a glottal stop in ordinary Beirut speech while recognizing formal q and community q/g outcomes without stigma.
  • Lebanese Jīm as zhA1 — Pronounce ordinary Lebanese jīm as the voiced fricative zh while recognizing formal, regional, and loanword alternatives.
  • Reflexes of ث and ذB1 — Learn when written ث and ذ surface as t, s, d, z, or a careful interdental in urban Lebanese speech.
  • Reflexes of ظ and Its Lexical MergersB1 — Recognize when written ظ is realized as emphatic ẓ, emphatic ḍ, plain z, or a formally restored interdental.
  • Lebanese R and LA2 — Produce Lebanese taps, trills, light and dark laterals, and doubled r and l without importing English or French defaults.
  • Consonant Length and GeminationA2 — Hear and produce Lebanese long consonants as one sustained gesture, including morphological shadda and boundary lookalikes.

Variation and Performance

Vowels and Prosody

Questions

Question Foundations

  • Yes-No Questions without InversionA1 — Ask and answer Lebanese yes-no questions with ordinary clause order, question intonation, optional contrastive subjects, and no English do-support.
  • شو: WhatA1 — Ask natural Lebanese questions about things, actions, and categories with neutral, predicative, and echo uses of شو.
  • مين: Who and WhomA1 — Use invariant مين for unknown people as subjects, objects, predicates, and prepositional complements in Lebanese questions.
  • وين: WhereA1 — Ask about Lebanese locations, destinations, origins, and existential settings with وين and its prepositional combinations.
  • إمتى: WhenA1 — Ask about event times, schedules, past and future points, starting points, and deadlines with Lebanese إمتى.
  • كيف: HowA1 — Use كيف for manner, condition, transport, greetings, clarification, and expressive reactions in Lebanese Arabic.
  • ليش: WhyA1 — Ask for reasons and purposes with Lebanese ليش, answer with لأنو, and hear how word order and intonation turn a question into a complaint or challenge.
  • قدّيش: How Much and How ManyA1 — Use Lebanese قديش for prices, quantities, counts, degrees, and duration, with the word order and noun patterns each meaning favors.
  • أيّ: WhichB1 — Use Lebanese أي to choose from a set, place it after prepositions, distinguish bare noun phrases from explicit definite sets, and extend it to free-choice ‘any.’

Structure and Interaction

  • Wh-in-Situ and Wh-FrontingB1 — Choose between leaving Lebanese question words in their semantic slot and moving them to the front, with attention to argument type, focus, prepositions, and prosody.
  • Clefted Questions with مين يلّي and شو يلّيB1 — Build focused Lebanese questions with مين يلي and شو يلي, including the relative marker, optional copular pronoun, and required object or prepositional resumptives.
  • Embedded QuestionsB1 — Embed Lebanese wh- and yes-no questions after know, ask, tell, and wonder expressions without English inversion or unnecessary complementizers.
  • Tag Questions with مش هيك, صح, and ولا لأB1 — Use Lebanese question tags to request confirmation, show expectations, soften proposals, or challenge an answer without copying English tag agreement.
  • Echo and Incredulous QuestionsB2 — Repeat all or part of a Lebanese utterance to repair hearing, verify surprising information, or challenge it—with the right word order, focus, and politeness.
  • Rhetorical QuestionsB2 — Recognize and use Lebanese questions whose answers are presented as obvious, including denial, reproach, persuasion, and resigned self-questioning.
  • Multiple Wh-QuestionsC1 — Ask about two linked unknowns in Lebanese using licensed مين…مين and أي + noun patterns, while recognizing why late شو is usually echo-only.

Regional & Social Variation

Contact and Change

Lebanon

  • Urban Beirut as the Production BaselineA1 — The guide's stable urban Beirut production model, with core forms, acceptable city variation, and responsible comparison across the Levant.
  • Mount Lebanon SpeechB2 — Recognize selected Mount Lebanon consonant, vowel, pronominal, and lexical patterns without turning a diverse region into one accent.
  • Northern Lebanese and TripoliB2 — Recognize Tripoli and northern Lebanese speech as a diverse regional cluster linked by local, urban, rural, and coastal continua.
  • Southern Lebanese SpeechB2 — Recognize southern Lebanese demonstrative and sound patterns across cities, villages, border continua, and mobile speakers.
  • Beqaa Valley VarietiesB2 — Recognize the Beqaa's town, rural, and Bedouin-linked varieties through qāf, vowels, contact, and speaker accommodation.
  • Community-Linked Variation in LebanonC2 — Understand historically documented community correlations through networks and accommodation without using speech to guess identity.
  • Class, Age, Gender, and StyleC2 — Analyze Lebanese social variation through changing networks, prestige, media, and stance without turning demographics into speech rules.

Wider Levant

  • Damascene Syrian ArabicB1 — Recognize Damascene pronouns, demonstratives, vowels, negation, and everyday vocabulary without abandoning the Beirut production baseline.
  • Aleppine and Northern Syrian ArabicB2 — Recognize salient Aleppine sounds, aspect marking, and vocabulary while respecting the diversity of northern Syrian speech.
  • Coastal Syrian SpeechB2 — Recognize qāf, vowel, verb-marker, and lexical variation along the Syrian coast without reducing it to one community accent.
  • Urban Palestinian ArabicB1 — Recognize urban Palestinian demonstratives, pronouns, qāf, b-imperfect meanings, negation, and frequent lexical alternatives.
  • Rural Palestinian VarietiesB2 — Recognize rural Palestinian qāf and kāf outcomes, feminine endings, and plural pronouns with careful village-level labeling.
  • Urban Jordanian ArabicB1 — Recognize Amman's contact-shaped urban Arabic through qāf, future and negation patterns, and shared Levantine structure without inventing a national stereotype.
  • Jordanian Bedouin-Linked VarietiesB2 — Recognize g-type qāf, retained interdentals, gendered plurals, and other Bedouin-linked Jordanian patterns without imitation or social stereotyping.
  • Levantine Isoglosses beyond BordersC2 — Map Levantine features as overlapping sound, morphology, and vocabulary boundaries rather than four sealed national dialects.

Register, Diglossia & Style

Core Diglossia

Interactional Registers

Written and Edited Style

Root System & Word Formation

Nominal Derivation

  • Place and Time Nouns with m-B1 — Recognize common Lebanese m-prefixed place and time nouns without overapplying inherited patterns.
  • Instrument NounsB1 — Recognize inherited tool patterns, lexicalized devices, and newer Lebanese names without treating morphology as a word-making machine.
  • Profession, Agent, and Habitual-Doer NounsB1 — Understand how Lebanese names professions and characteristic doers through inherited patterns, participles, feminine forms, and loans.
  • Nisba Formation from Places and FieldsB2 — Form and recognize Lebanese nisba words from countries, cities, institutions, and fields while respecting stem changes and lexical exceptions.
  • Abstract Nouns in -iyyeB1 — Recognize and use Lebanese abstract nouns in -iyye while distinguishing productive technical vocabulary from lexicalized everyday words.
  • Unit and Instance Nouns in ةB1 — Distinguish one member of a collective from one occurrence of an action through lexicalized Lebanese nouns in ة.
  • Diminutives and Affective MorphologyB2 — Understand inherited diminutive shapes, affectionate nicknames, and the context that turns smallness into warmth, pity, or contempt.

Root Foundations

Verb-Derived Networks

Sentences

Core Patterns

  • Basic Nominal SentencesA1 — Build present Lebanese sentences with noun, pronoun, adjective, and prepositional predicates without an English-style copula.
  • Basic Verbal SentencesA1 — Build Lebanese verbal sentences with subjects, direct objects, prepositional complements, and natural subject omission.
  • Existential في SentencesA1 — Use invariant في and ما في to introduce people, things, and availability without an English-style dummy subject.
  • Location and Presence SentencesA1 — Locate identifiable people and things with zero-copula predicates, Beirut بـ and suffixed فيـ, demonstratives, and natural وين answers.
  • Possession SentencesA1 — Choose عند, مع, لـ, or تبع to say what someone has, has with them, is assigned, or owns in everyday Lebanese sentences.
  • Weather, Time, and Environmental PredicatesA2 — Describe weather, temperature, clock time, seasons, and the surrounding environment without importing English dummy ‘it.’

Expansion and Combination

Verb Reference

Core Irregular and Grammatical Verbs

  • كان kān: be and becomeA2 — Conjugate Lebanese كان and use it for past states, marked nonpast meanings, habitual backgrounds, directives, and counterfactuals.
  • راح rāḥ: go and future auxiliaryA2 — Use the irregular Lebanese motion verb راح and distinguish it from the invariant future marker رح.
  • إجا ʾizha: comeA2 — Conjugate the highly irregular Lebanese verb إجا and use it for motion toward the conversational center.
  • بدّ badd: want and needA2 — Use the suffixed Lebanese predicate بدّ for wants, needs, intentions, and polite service requests.
  • في fī: exist and canA2 — Distinguish existential في, locative في, and suffixed في for ability and situational possibility.
  • صار ṣār: become and happenA2 — Conjugate Lebanese صار and use it for change of state, events, elapsed time, and discourse questions.
  • خلّى khalla: let, make, and leaveA2 — Conjugate Lebanese خلّى and use its object-plus-predicate pattern for letting, causing, leaving, and keeping something in a state.
  • ضلّ ḍall: remain and keep doingA2 — Use and conjugate Lebanese ضلّ for remaining in a place or state, continuing an action, and describing duration.

Daily Life and Interaction

  • نام nām: sleepA2 — Use Lebanese نام across its hollow paradigm, bedtime and duration frames, commands, and the participial state نايم.
  • قام ʾām: get up and standA2 — Conjugate Lebanese قام and distinguish getting up, being on one's feet, recovery formulas, and discourse-sequencing uses.
  • فاق fāʾ: wake upA2 — Use Lebanese فاق for waking and awareness, and distinguish its hollow paradigm from causative فيّق with object clitics.
  • لبس libis: wear and put onA2 — Conjugate Lebanese لبس and choose among putting clothes on, wearing them, the participle لابس, and causative لبّس.
  • سكن sakan: live and resideA2 — Use Lebanese سكن for residence, choose بـ or في for location, and understand why ساكن is the default current-state form.
  • اشتغل ishtaghal: workA2 — Conjugate اشتغل and use its workplace, profession, task, device, and functioning frames naturally in Lebanese.
  • درس daras: studyA2 — Conjugate درس and distinguish studying a subject, attending an institution, examining material, and teaching with Form II.
  • تعلّم taʿallam: learnA2 — Conjugate تعلّم and express learning content, acquiring skills, learning from a source, and learner result states.
  • علّم ʿallam: teach and markA2 — Conjugate علّم and use its learner, content, teach-to-do, marking, clitic, and participial frames accurately.
  • اشترى ishtara: buyA2 — Conjugate final-weak اشترى and express goods, sellers, sources, prices, beneficiaries, and purchases with natural clitics.
  • باع bāʿ: sellA2 — Conjugate Lebanese باع and express the goods sold, the buyer, the price, object clitics, commands, and everyday passive alternatives.
  • دفع dafaʿ: pay and pushA2 — Conjugate Lebanese دفع and use its payment frames, physical push sense, clitics, participles, and everyday payment nouns.
  • طبخ ṭabakh: cookA2 — Conjugate Lebanese طبخ and use it naturally for cooking food, cooking without an expressed object, commands, clitics, and cooked-result participles.
  • غسل ghasal: washA2 — Conjugate Form I غسل, build natural body-part and object constructions, and distinguish reflexive alternatives and common Form II غسّل.

Formal-Contact and Function Verbs

  • لزم lazim: be necessary and stickB1 — Separate invariant modal لازم from the restricted finite verb لزم, including necessity, need clitics, adherence, and formal-contact uses.
  • قدر ʾidir: be ableA2 — Conjugate قدر and distinguish present capacity, successful achievement, situational possibility with في, and the state expressed by قادر.
  • جرّب zharrab: try and testA2 — Conjugate جرّب and distinguish trying an action from testing or sampling a direct object, with commands, clitics, and participles.
  • قرّر ʾarrar: decideB1 — Conjugate قرّر and express decisions about actions, questions, arrangements, and institutional policy with natural Lebanese complement frames.
  • اتّفق ittafaʾ: agreeB1 — Conjugate Lebanese اتّفق and choose مع, عـ, and clausal complements for people, terms, and joint decisions.
  • حصل ḥaṣal: happen and obtainB1 — Recognize and conjugate حصل while separating eventive ‘happen’ from formal-contact حصل على ‘obtain.’

High-Frequency Actions

  • عمل ʿimil: do, make, and workA2 — Conjugate Lebanese عمل and choose its natural patterns for doing, making, working, and common light-verb expressions.
  • حكى ḥaka: speak and tellA2 — Conjugate Lebanese حكى and distinguish speaking with someone, talking about a topic, telling content, and reporting speech.
  • قال ʾāl: sayA2 — Conjugate urban Lebanese قال and use it for quotations, reported clauses, recipients, and common conversational formulas.
  • شاف shāf: seeA2 — Conjugate Lebanese شاف and use it for visual perception, meeting, checking, object clitics, and the discourse marker شوف.
  • سمع simiʿ: hearA2 — Conjugate Lebanese سمع and distinguish hearing, deliberate listening, reportative clauses, source frames, and current سامع states.
  • أكل ʾakal: eatA2 — Use Lebanese أكل across its hamzated paradigm, short commands, meal and substance objects, clitics, and everyday figurative extensions.
  • شرب shirib: drinkA2 — Conjugate Lebanese شرب and use it naturally with beverages, containers, liquid medicine, object suffixes, and idiomatic extensions.
  • أخد ʾakhad: takeA2 — Master Lebanese أخد across its hamzated paradigm, short commands, source and destination frames, transport uses, clitics, and light-verb collocations.
  • عطى ʿaṭa: giveA2 — Conjugate the final-weak Lebanese verb عطى and use its theme, recipient, clitic, and idiomatic frames naturally.
  • جاب zhāb: bring and getA2 — Conjugate hollow جاب and use it for bringing, fetching, acquiring, obtaining results, and mentioning topics.
  • حطّ ḥaṭṭ: putA2 — Conjugate geminate حطّ and use it for placement, addition, setting, and result states with natural location phrases.
  • فتح fataḥ: openA2 — Conjugate فتح and distinguish opening actions, spontaneous opening events, business hours, digital uses, and open states.
  • سكّر sakkar: closeA2 — Conjugate Form II سكّر and distinguish closing events, business hours, device uses, and active versus result participles.
  • نزل nizil: go down and get offA2 — Conjugate Lebanese نزل and use it for downward motion, getting off transport, falling levels, releases, and the distinct causative نزّل.
  • طلع ṭiliʿ: go up and turn outA2 — Conjugate Lebanese طلع and connect its motion, leaving, appearing, resulting, and causative uses without confusing Form I and Form II.
  • فات fāt: pass and enterA2 — Conjugate Lebanese فات and use its hollow stems for entering, passing through, elapsed time, and missed buses or opportunities.
  • وصل wiṣil: arrive and reachA2 — Conjugate initial-weak Lebanese وصل and distinguish arriving, reaching a person, delivery, and the result-state participle واصل.
  • رجع rizhiʿ: returnA2 — Conjugate Lebanese رجع and distinguish returning, doing something again, getting back to someone, and causative رجّع with objects.

High-Value Derived and Irregular Verbs

  • بلّش ballash: beginA2 — Conjugate بلّش and start events, projects, and same-subject activities with natural Lebanese complement frames.
  • كمّل kammal: continue and finishA2 — Conjugate Lebanese كمّل and use context, complements, and particles to distinguish continuing from completing.
  • خلص khiliṣ and خلّص khallaṣA2 — Distinguish Lebanese خلص ‘be done’ from doubled خلّص ‘finish something or pay,’ with both complete paradigms.
  • فوّت fawwat: let in and make enterB1 — Conjugate Lebanese فوّت for letting people in, putting things through, and actively missing buses or opportunities.
  • نزّل nazzal: bring down and downloadB1 — Conjugate Lebanese نزّل for causing downward motion, letting passengers off, lowering values, and digital downloading.
  • طلّع ṭallaʿ: take out and showB1 — Conjugate Lebanese طلّع for causing outward or upward motion, producing documents, displaying items, and deriving results.
  • غيّر ghayyar: changeA2 — Conjugate غيّر and use it for changing plans, clothes, transport, objects, and oneself through the related Form V verb.
  • زبّط zabbaṭ: fix and arrangeA2 — Conjugate colloquial زبّط and use it for fixing, adjusting, arranging, and setting things up with the right object frames.
  • عزم ʿazam: inviteA2 — Conjugate عزم and invite people to meals, homes, and events using natural Lebanese hospitality frames and participles.
  • ترك tarak: leaveA2 — Conjugate ترك and distinguish leaving objects, places, jobs, people, resulting states, and permissive ‘let’ clauses.
  • لقي laʾi: find and meetA2 — Conjugate the weak mixed paradigm of لقي, use direct objects and discovery predicates, and distinguish finding from searching.
  • استنّى istanna: waitA2 — Conjugate استنّى and express waiting for people, things, and later events with direct objects, clitics, and لـ clauses.

Movement, State, and Change

  • مشي mishi: walk and leaveA2 — Conjugate final-weak Lebanese مشي and use it for walking, paths, departure, workable situations, commands, and participial states.
  • ركب rikib: ride and get inA2 — Conjugate Lebanese ركب and choose natural frames for boarding, riding, vehicles, mounting, clitics, and the distinct installation verb ركّب.
  • ساق sāʾ: drive and leadA2 — Conjugate hollow ساق and use it with vehicles, passengers, animals, routes, commands, and the driver participle سايق.
  • وقف wiʾif: stop and standA2 — Conjugate initial-weak وقف and distinguish stopping, standing, stable واقف, and causative وقّف with its objects.
  • قعد ʾiʿid: sit and stayA2 — Conjugate قعد and use it for sitting down, remaining somewhere, duration, posture, invitations, and regional continuation constructions.
  • بقي baʾi: remain and becomeB1 — Conjugate بقي and distinguish remaining, being left, later change, and the competing everyday verbs ضل and صار.
  • كبر kibir: grow and become bigA2 — Conjugate كبر for growing up, increasing in size, aging, comparison, and the Form II causative كبّر.
  • صغر zghir: become smallB1 — Use Lebanese زغر for becoming smaller and distinguish it from the adjective زغير and causative صغّر.
  • مرض maraḍ: get sickA2 — Conjugate Lebanese مرض and distinguish getting sick from being مريض, causing illness, and naming symptoms.
  • مات māt: dieA2 — Conjugate hollow مات and discuss death, figurative uses, respectful alternatives, and condolence language appropriately.
  • عاش ʿāsh: liveA2 — Conjugate hollow عاش and distinguish being alive, residing somewhere, living through an experience, wishes, and slogans.

Thought, Feeling, and Communication

  • عرف ʿirif: knowA2 — Conjugate Lebanese عرف and distinguish knowing people and facts, finding out, know-how complements, negation, participles, and discourse uses of بعرف.
  • فهم fihim: understandA2 — Conjugate فهم and use its direct objects, question and clause complements, repair formulas, participle, and causative partner.
  • فكّر fakkar: thinkA2 — Conjugate فكّر and distinguish opinions, thinking about something, considering an action, assumptions, and participial viewpoints.
  • تذكّر tzakkar: rememberA2 — Conjugate تذكّر and use it with remembered objects, propositions, remember-to complements, reminders, clitics, and Beirut ذ pronunciation.
  • نسي nisi: forgetA2 — Conjugate final-weak نسي and express forgotten objects, forgotten actions, things left behind, clitics, and result-state ناسي.
  • حبّ ḥabb: like and loveA2 — Conjugate geminate حبّ and distinguish liking, loving, preferred actions, polite desire, negation, intensifiers, clitics, and حابب.
  • كره kirih: dislike and hateA2 — Conjugate كره and express disliked things, activities, situations, and strong aversion naturally in Lebanese Arabic.
  • خاف khāf: fearA2 — Conjugate hollow خاف and express fear, concern, warnings, reassurance, and fear-of complements naturally.
  • حسّ ḥass: feel and senseA2 — Conjugate geminate حسّ and express bodily sensations, emotions, perception, and intuition with accurate complement frames.
  • سأل saʾal: askA2 — Conjugate hamzated سأل and distinguish the person asked, the topic, a question, and a request for action.
  • جاوب zhāwab: answerA2 — Conjugate Form III جاوب and answer people, questions, messages, and phones with natural Lebanese frames.
  • اتّصل ittaṣal: contact and callA2 — Conjugate Lebanese اتصل and use its person complements, phone meanings, reciprocal alternatives, participle, and suffixed prepositions naturally.
  • بعت baʿat: sendA2 — Conjugate Lebanese بعت and package sent themes, recipients, digital messages, clitics, and result-relevant participles naturally.
  • فرجى farzha: showA2 — Conjugate final-weak Lebanese فرجى and distinguish its viewer, theme, clitic combinations, commands, participle, and watch/look neighbors.

Verbs

Derived Forms

  • Form I as a Lexical BaseB1 — Learn Form I through perfect–nonpast principal parts, lexical vowel classes, real complement frames, and the contrast between events and states.
  • Form II faʿʿalB1 — Recognize the doubled middle radical of Form II and learn its causative, intensive, denominal, and fully lexical Lebanese verbs through principal parts and frames.
  • Form III fāʿalB1 — Use the long first vowel of Form III while learning which Lebanese verbs are interactive, directed, transitive, intransitive, or lexicalized.
  • Form IV ʾafʿal in LebaneseB2 — Recognize the limited but real Lebanese Form IV inventory, from everyday أعطى to professional أعلن, without importing an MSA paradigm wholesale.
  • Form V tfaʿʿalB1 — Recognize the Lebanese t-plus-doubling shape of Form V and learn its acquisition, middle, result, and lexical meanings with their real frames.
  • Form VI tfāʿalB1 — Recognize Form VI verbs of mutual, joint, gradual, and lexical action while learning their real Lebanese participant frames.
  • Form VII nfaʿalB2 — Use Form VII for changes and passive-like events whose affected participant is the subject, without importing an English by-agent passive.
  • Form VIII ftaʿalB2 — Recognize the mobile t of Form VIII, its sound assimilations, weak-root shapes, and lexical middle or reciprocal meanings in Lebanese.
  • Form IX fʿallB2 — Recognize the small Form IX class of color and bodily-state changes, its final gemination, and the ordinary صار plus adjective alternative.
  • Form X stafʿalB2 — Recognize the استـ family while learning which Lebanese verbs request, evaluate, become, or carry independent lexical meanings.
  • Why Derived Forms Do Not Have One MeaningB2 — Learn to treat Arabic verb forms as lexical families whose tendencies must be checked against each verb's actual Lebanese meaning and frame.
  • Derived Forms and Changes in ValencyC1 — See how Lebanese derived verbs add, suppress, or reorganize participants—and why every resulting frame must still be learned lexically.
  • Middle and Anticausative StrategiesC1 — Distinguish Lebanese change-of-state events, passive-like middles, and result states across Forms V, VII, VIII, and participles.
  • Comparing a Root across Several Verb FormsC1 — Trace the root ف-ه-م across attested Lebanese forms to see how meaning, valency, register, and missing cells create a lexical network.

Foundations

Hamzated and Geminate Verbs

  • Hamzated VerbsB1 — Understand how lexical hamza behaves as an initial, medial, or final radical across Lebanese verb paradigms and spelling.
  • أكل and أخدA2 — Master the frequent Lebanese verbs for eating and taking, including their fused nonpast stems, short commands, clitics, and everyday collocations.
  • سأل and Medial-Hamza VerbsB1 — Master the Lebanese paradigm of سأل, retain its medial hamza, and distinguish the person asked from the topic and requested action.
  • قرأ and Final-Hamza VerbsB1 — Use Lebanese qara across perfect, imperfect, and imperative forms while separating Beirut qaf from the lost historical final hamza.
  • Geminate VerbsB1 — Recognize Lebanese verbs whose last two root consonants merge in short forms and reappear in expanded suffixed forms.
  • Geminate Perfect with Consonant-Initial SuffixesB1 — Build Lebanese geminate perfect forms with the expanded stem used before first- and second-person endings.
  • Imperatives and Bare Imperfects of Geminate VerbsB1 — Form Lebanese geminate commands and bare imperfects while preserving consonant length, agreement, and attached clitics.
  • Geminate Roots in Derived FormsB2 — Trace geminate roots through Lebanese derived stems, assimilation, participles, and lexically distinct meanings.
  • Hamza Seats across Colloquial Verb ParadigmsC1 — Keep lexical hamza visible and editorially consistent as Lebanese verbs take prefixes, suffixes, clitics, and colloquial spellings.

Imperatives and Requests

Imperfect and Present

Modal and Aspectual Predicates

Perfect and Past

Progressive and Future

Voice, Valency, and Advanced Use

  • Passive and Agent-Suppressing StrategiesB1 — Choose among Lebanese middle verbs, result participles, generic plural subjects, impersonal clauses, and limited formal passives.
  • Analytic Causatives with خلّى and Other VerbsB1 — Build Lebanese let, make, force, allow, and help constructions with an explicit causer, causee, and correctly marked lower predicate.
  • Lexical and Derived Causative PairsB2 — Learn which Lebanese Form I–II and suppletive pairs add a causer, how their participants shift, and where the mapping stops being productive.
  • Change-of-State and Unaccusative PredicatesB2 — Use Lebanese arrival, appearance, disappearance, and change-of-state verbs with natural subject order, agreement, and result-state contrasts.
  • Light-Verb ConstructionsB2 — Build natural Lebanese event expressions with عمل, عطى, أخد, and صار while keeping aspect, valency, and collocation on the whole phrase.
  • Tightly Linked Finite-Verb SequencesC1 — Recognize when adjacent Lebanese verbs form one integrated motion, posture, or narrative package rather than ordinary coordination.
  • Verb Ellipsis and GappingC1 — Leave recoverable Lebanese predicates unspoken in answers, coordinated clauses, polarity contrasts, and comparisons without importing English do-support.
  • Rhetorical Shifts of Tense and AspectC2 — Use Lebanese viewpoint shifts for vivid narrative, polite distance, generic wisdom, surprise, and reenacted voices without confusing discourse effect with clock time.

Weak Verbs

  • Weak Verbs: An OverviewB1 — Recognize initial, hollow, final, and doubly weak Lebanese verbs and learn them reliably through principal parts rather than spelling guesses.
  • Initial-Weak VerbsB1 — Learn how an initial w or y behaves across Lebanese perfect, imperfect, command, participle, and maṣdar forms without importing an MSA deletion rule.
  • Hollow VerbsB1 — Understand why Lebanese hollow verbs alternate between long-vowel and short-vowel stems across the perfect, imperfect, and imperative.
  • qāl-Type Hollow VerbsB1 — Master the qāl-type alternation through قال and related Lebanese hollow verbs with an ā/ē perfect and ū-class nonpast.
  • bīʿ-Type Hollow VerbsB1 — Learn the Lebanese bēʿ–biʿt–byibīʿ pattern, its command forms, and the argument structure of selling.
  • rāḥ-Type and Other Irregular Hollow VerbsB1 — Master rāḥ–riḥt–byrūḥ and learn why other frequent Lebanese hollow verbs require their own principal-part cards.
  • Final-Weak VerbsB1 — Recognize how Lebanese vowel-final verbs rebuild their stems before person endings, clitics, and imperfect markers.
  • Final-ā VerbsB1 — Master the changing perfect, imperfect, plural, and imperative stems of common Lebanese verbs whose citation form ends in -a.
  • Final-ī VerbsB1 — Conjugate Lebanese verbs such as nisi that alternate between an i-perfect and an a-imperfect, including bare forms and clitics.
  • Final-ū and Plural-Ending InteractionsB2 — Distinguish rare lexical final-u material from Beirut plural -o and track what happens when weak stems take another suffix.
  • Imperatives of Weak VerbsB1 — Form and use Lebanese commands whose weak or irregular stems shorten, restore a radical, or change before agreement and clitics.
  • Weak Verbs under NegationB2 — Negate Lebanese weak verbs without losing their person-conditioned stems, b-markers, future licensing, or attached objects.
  • Weak Verbs with Object CliticsB2 — Attach Lebanese object and recipient clitics to hollow and final-weak hosts while preserving the correct subject stem, glide, and linking vowel.
  • Participles from Weak RootsB2 — Recognize and use Lebanese weak-root participles as current activities, result states, intentions, and lexicalized adjectives.
  • Maṣdars from Weak RootsB2 — Learn which Lebanese weak-root verbal nouns are lexical, which derived patterns are predictable, and how they behave as real nouns.
  • Weak Roots in Derived FormsB2 — Track Lebanese weak radicals through derived stems, including vowel loss, assimilation, participles, maṣdars, and opaque surface roots.
  • Doubly Weak and Highly Irregular VerbsC1 — Learn how Lebanese handles verbs with two weak radicals and why high-frequency irregular verbs must be stored as complete lexical paradigms.
  • Diagnosing an Unfamiliar Weak VerbC1 — Use principal parts, suffix tests, related words, and reliable dictionary evidence to classify unfamiliar Lebanese weak verbs.

Word Order & Agreement

Advanced Structure

  • Scrambling, Weight, and End FocusC1 — Reorder Lebanese complements when weight, givenness, or contrast motivates it, while using clitics, agreement, and prosody to preserve grammatical roles.
  • Extraction Limits and ResumptionC1 — Maintain long-distance dependencies with Lebanese resumptive clitics while respecting the processing limits of embedded questions, adjuncts, relative clauses, and possessed phrases.
  • Resolving Attachment and Scope AmbiguityC2 — Resolve Lebanese ambiguity through agreement, constituent order, resumptive clitics, definiteness, prosody, context, and explicit paraphrase.
  • Marked Word Order in Song, Proverbs, and OratoryC2 — Recognize meter-, rhyme-, parallelism-, and register-driven Lebanese word order without treating performance syntax as a neutral conversational model.

Agreement

Neutral Clause Order

  • Basic Subject–Verb–Object OrderA1 — Build neutral Lebanese verbal clauses with an established subject before the verb, while recognizing null subjects, flexible adverbs, and topicalized objects.
  • Verb-Initial Clauses in Lebanese ArabicB1 — Use Lebanese verb-initial order to present events and new participants, with full colloquial agreement and discourse-sensitive subject placement.
  • Word Order in Verbless ClausesA1 — Build present-time Lebanese clauses without a copula, placing noun, adjective, location, and participial predicates according to agreement and information structure.
  • Objects, Clitics, and Full Noun PhrasesA2 — Place new full objects after Lebanese verbs, attach given pronominal objects as suffixes, and manage doubling, heavy objects, and recipient–theme order.
  • Where Time, Place, and Manner Phrases GoA2 — Place Lebanese time, place, frequency, and manner expressions at clause edges or near the verb according to framing, focus, scope, and prosody.

Topics and Focus

  • Left Dislocation and Resumptive CliticsC1 — Place an accessible Lebanese topic before a complete clause and resume its subject, object, possessive, or prepositional role inside the comment.
  • Right Dislocation and AfterthoughtsB2 — Complete a Lebanese clause with a pronoun, clitic, or recoverable null subject, then add a final noun phrase to clarify, repair, reactivate, or emphasize its referent.
  • Object Fronting and ContrastB2 — Front Lebanese objects as resumed topics or contrastive foci, using clitics, prosody, and definiteness to keep their discourse roles distinct.
  • Clefts with يلّيB1 — Build Lebanese يلّي clefts that identify a focused person, thing, or wh-value while preserving subject gaps and non-subject resumptives.
  • Word Order with بس, كمان, حتّى, and هوّيC1 — Place Lebanese restrictive, additive, scalar, and identificational focus markers beside the intended constituent and use prosody to resolve wider scope.
  • Presentational and Thetic SentencesB2 — Present all-new Lebanese situations through existential في, postverbal indefinites, scene-setting frames, and event-reporting order.

Writing System

Advanced Literacy

Alphabet Foundations

Core Colloquial Orthography