Questions & Answers about من هذا الضيف؟
Why is there no word for "is" after "Who"?
In Arabic, there is no word for "is" or "are" in the present tense. من means "who", so the sentence literally reads "Who this the guest?".
Why does the word for guest (الضيف) have ال (the) attached to it? Shouldn't it just be "this guest"?
In Arabic, when you want to say "this [noun]" (like "this guest"), the noun must have the definite article ال attached to it. If you drop it and say هذا ضيف, it changes the meaning to a full sentence: "This is a guest."
I learned a word for "from" that looks exactly like من. How do I tell them apart?
Context is key! "From" is pronounced مِن (min), while "Who" is pronounced مَن (man). In everyday reading without short vowel marks, they look identical, but a sentence asking about a person's identity will always use مَن.
If the guest is a woman, does the word من change?
No, من (who) stays exactly the same for men, women, and groups! However, you would change the rest of the sentence to match the feminine gender: من هذه الضيفة؟ (Who is this female guest?).
When listening to this, I don't hear the "L" sound in الضيف (al-Dayf). Why?
The first letter of ضيف is ض (Daad), which is a "Sun letter". Sun letters absorb the "L" sound of the ال (al-) attached to them. Instead of saying "al-Dayf", you double the ض sound and say "aD-Dayf".
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