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Questions & Answers about أنا مشغول اليوم.
Why does اليوم have "al-" (the) at the beginning if it means "today"?
In Arabic, the word for "today" is literally "the day". You take the word for day, يوم, and add the definite article الـ (al-) to it, making اليوم. It acts just like the adverb "today" in English.
What if a woman is saying this sentence?
She would need to make the adjective "busy" feminine by adding a taa marboota (ة) to the end. A woman would say: أنا مشغولة اليوم.
Where is the word for "am" in this sentence?
Arabic does not use the present tense of the verb "to be" (am, is, are). You simply put the subject (أنا, I) directly next to the adjective (مشغول, busy) to mean "I am busy".
Can I put اليوم at the beginning of the sentence?
Yes! Adverbs of time like اليوم are very flexible in Arabic. You can say اليوم أنا مشغول (Today I am busy) and it is perfectly correct and natural.