Questions & Answers about النافذة أمام السرير.
How would I change this to say "The window is in front of our bed" using this lesson's grammar?
To say "our bed", you must drop the word for "the" which is ال from السرير and attach the plural possessive pronoun for "our", which is ـنا (-na). The word becomes سريرنا (sariiruna). The modified sentence would be النافذة أمام سريرنا.
Why isn't there a word for "is" in the Arabic sentence?
In Arabic, simple sentences that describe what something is or where it is do not use a "to be" verb in the present tense. You simply state the subject, النافذة (the window), directly followed by its location, أمام السرير (in front of the bed).
I see the word for "the" (ال) on both nouns. How does the pronunciation change for these specific words?
Both the letter ن (nuun) in النافذة and the letter س (siin) in السرير are "sun letters." This means the "l" sound in the prefix ال is skipped, and you double the first letter of the noun instead. They are pronounced "an-naafidha" and "as-sariir".
What grammatical effect does the word أمام (in front of) have on السرير (the bed)?
Location words like أمام act like prepositions in Arabic. They cause the noun immediately following them to take the genitive case. If you pronounce the word with its full formal grammatical ending, it will have a "kasra" (a short "i" sound) at the end, making it السريرِ (as-sariiri).