Questions & Answers about المصورون مشغولون.
Both words end in ـون. Is this how you make regular masculine plurals?
Yes! For regular masculine nouns and adjectives referring to people, you add ـون to the end of the singular word. The singular words here are مصور (photographer) and مشغول (busy).
I learned that masculine plurals can also end in ـين. Why do both words use ـون in this sentence?
In Arabic, the ending changes depending on the word's role in the sentence. Here, المصورون is the subject (the main topic) and مشغولون is the predicate (the information about the topic). Both of these roles require the nominative case, which uses the ـون ending. You will see the ـين ending when the word is an object or comes after a preposition.
Where is the word for 'are' in this sentence?
Arabic does not use a present tense verb for 'to be' (am, is, are). Simply putting the subject المصورون (The photographers) and the predicate مشغولون (busy) together creates the meaning 'The photographers are busy.'
Why does the adjective مشغولون have a plural ending? In English, we just say 'busy', not 'busies'.
In Arabic, adjectives must match the noun they describe in both gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural). Because the noun المصورون is a masculine plural, the adjective describing them must also become a masculine plural by adding the same ـون ending.
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