Breakdown of سافر المدير إلى بلاد فقيرة.
الal
the
إلىilâ
to
فقيرfaqîr
poor
مديرmudîr
manager
سافرsâfara
to travel
بلدbalad
country
Questions & Answers about سافر المدير إلى بلاد فقيرة.
The word for countries is بلاد. How does this plural work?
بلاد is a broken plural. Unlike regular plurals that just add an ending (like -s in English), broken plurals change the internal letters of the singular word. Here, the singular word for country (بلد) stretches out to become بلاد. You simply have to memorize the broken plural form when you learn a new noun.
Why is the adjective for poor (فقيرة) in the feminine singular form if it describes plural countries?
This is one of the most important rules in Arabic: all non-human plurals are treated grammatically as feminine singular! Since countries (بلاد) are not human, any adjective describing them must take the feminine singular form, which is why فقيرة ends with the feminine marker.
Why does the verb سافر (traveled) come before the subject المدير (the manager)?
Arabic sentences very commonly start with the verb. This is called a verbal sentence. The standard word order is Verb-Subject-Object, so placing the verb first is the most natural way to say The manager traveled in Modern Standard Arabic.
Neither بلاد nor فقيرة has ال (the) attached to it. Why?
They are indefinite, meaning they refer to poor countries in general, not the poor countries. In Arabic, an adjective must match its noun in definiteness. Since the countries are indefinite (no ال), the adjective describing them must also be indefinite.
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