Breakdown of سبح الكلب في النهر.
الal
the
كلبkalb
dog
فيfî
in / about, regarding
نهرnahr
river
سبحsabaha
to swim
Questions & Answers about سبح الكلب في النهر.
Why does the sentence start with 'swam' (سبح) instead of 'the dog' (الكلب)?
In Arabic, sentences that describe an action usually start with the verb. This is called a verbal sentence. So, instead of saying 'The dog swam' like we do in English, we use the verb-subject order 'Swam the dog' (سبح الكلب).
If the dog was female, would the verb change?
Yes! In Arabic, the verb must match the gender of the subject. Because الكلب (the dog) is a masculine word, we use the masculine past tense verb سبح. If it were a female dog, we would add the feminine 't' ending to the verb and say سبحت.
I see both the dog and the river have the prefix ال attached. Does this always mean 'the'?
Exactly. The prefix ال (al-) is the Arabic definite article, meaning 'the'. Unlike English, it attaches directly to the beginning of the noun. So كلب is 'a dog' and الكلب is 'the dog'.
Why does the pronunciation of the prefix ال change between الكلب (al-kalb) and النهر (an-nahr)?
This happens because of 'sun' and 'moon' letters. The letter Kaf in الكلب is a moon letter, so we clearly pronounce the 'L' sound. The letter Nun in النهر is a sun letter. When ال is attached to a sun letter, the 'L' becomes silent and we double the first sound of the word instead, making it sound like 'an-nahr'.
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