Questions & Answers about نظر الطبيب إلى مريض.
This lesson is about the dual. How would we change this sentence to say "The doctor looked at two patients"?
You would change مريض (a patient) to مريضين (two patients). Because it comes after the preposition إلى (to/at), it takes the ـين (-ayn) ending instead of the ـان (-aan) ending.
What if we wanted to say "Two doctors looked at a patient"?
You would change الطبيب (the doctor) to الطبيبان (the two doctors). Because the doctors are the subject doing the action, the word takes the ـان (-aan) ending. Notice that the verb نظر (looked) stays singular because it comes before the subject!
Why do we use إلى (to) when the English translation says "looked at"?
In Arabic, the verb نظر (to look) pairs with the preposition إلى (to/towards). You can think of it literally as "looked towards a patient."
Why is the verb نظر (looked) at the very beginning of the sentence?
Arabic sentences frequently use a Verb-Subject-Object word order. It is completely natural to start with the action, so the literal order here is "Looked the doctor at a patient."
How do we know it's "a patient" and not "the patient"?
The word مريض (patient) does not have the prefix الـ (al-) attached to it. Nouns without this "the" prefix are indefinite, which translates to using "a" or "an" in English.
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