اشترى ishtara — buy

اشترى ishtara is the ordinary mainstream Cairene verb “buy.” It is final-weak: the citation form ends in ى, but suffixed perfect forms contain ي and often a long ē, as in اشتريت ishtarēt. Its imperfect is يشتري yishtiri. Learn those principal parts together instead of trying to construct the verb from the English word buy.

For the wider structural family, see weak Pattern VIII verbs; this page stays focused on the exact behavior of اشترى.

The purchased item is a direct object. من introduces the seller or source, بـ can introduce the price, and لـ commonly marks the intended recipient. These frames are part of knowing the verb, not optional translations of English prepositions.

Complete Practical Paradigm

The positive commands are اشتري ishtiri for one man or one woman and اشتروا ishtiru for a group. In speech, feminine singular تشتري and اشتري do not add a separate final -i beyond the stem’s own vowel. Negative commands use ماتشتريش and ماتشتروش.

Reporting a Purchase versus Shopping Habitually

The perfect presents a purchase as complete. The b-imperfect presents an actual ongoing purchase process or a recurring buying habit. A bare imperfect appears after words such as عايز and لازم, while joined حـ presents a future event.

English uses buying both for the event and for the broader activity “shopping.” Egyptian can use بيشتري when an actual item or purchasing event is prominent, but ordinary “go shopping” may be expressed with ينزل يشتري حاجات or a more specific noun. Do not infer an automatic progressive meaning from بـ alone.

Item, Source, Price, and Beneficiary

The item follows directly: اشترى كتاب. A source takes من, whether it is a person, shop, or website. A price commonly takes بـ or appears in a بكام؟ question. A beneficiary takes لـ. One sentence can contain all four roles without copying English double-object order.

In the second example, English places Mum before the item with no preposition. Egyptian marks her explicitly with لـ. Alternatively, اشتريت شال لماما puts the item first while preserving the same roles.

Object Suffixes and the Negative Envelope

An object pronoun attaches directly to the completed verb: اشتريته “I bought it.” The suffix does not replace the final-weak stem change; it follows the already formed اشتريتـ. In finite negation, ما...ش surrounds that whole verb-plus-object complex.

The sequence ـهولي can combine an object with a beneficiary: اشتراهولي “he bought it for me.” This is compact, everyday morphology; English expresses the same roles with separate words.

Participles and Lexical Limits

The active participle مشتري mishtiri can denote a buyer or someone committed to a purchase: المشتري “the buyer.” Feminine مشترية mishtirya and plural مشترين mishtiryīn agree with human referents. For a currently unfolding shopping event, however, finite بيشتري is usually clearer than forcing the participle into an English progressive.

مشتريات moshtarayāt means “purchases” or “shopping items” and is a lexicalized noun. Formal commercial language also uses شراء (formal). These related words do not create new meanings mechanically. The everyday verb still has to be learned with its own frame.

A Short Dialogue

The reply contains the “we” stem اشترينا plus object ـها. The source still takes من; the price question still uses بكام.

Register and Variation

These forms are mainstream urban Cairene (informal/neutral). Formal MSA shares the spelling اشترى but has a different inflectional system and formal citation pronunciation (formal). In Egyptian writing, plural forms may appear with spelling variants such as اشتريوا; this page consistently uses the readable اشتروا for pronounced ishtaru. Regional, community, class, and performance varieties may differ in vowel quality or prefer another lexical item. Such variants should be labeled, not mixed into one supposed universal spoken paradigm.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Learn اشترى–اشتريت–بيشتري–اشتري as a final-weak set.
• The item is direct; use من for source, بـ for price, and لـ for a beneficiary.
• Attach object suffixes after the properly inflected stem and keep them inside ما...ش.
• Treat مشتري and مشتريات as attested lexical uses, not automatic English tense equivalents.