Breakdown of في القرية تسعون بيتا.
الal
the
فيfî
in / about, regarding
بيتbayt
house
قريةqarya
village
تسعونtis'ûna
ninety
Questions & Answers about في القرية تسعون بيتا.
Why is بيتا singular when the English translation says 'houses'?
In Arabic, the rules for counting change depending on the number. For numbers from 11 to 99, the noun being counted must always be singular. So you are literally saying 'ninety house'.
Why does بيتا have an extra alif at the end?
That extra alif acts as a placeholder for the '-an' ending sound. Nouns counted by numbers from 11 to 99 must take this specific grammatical state, known as the accusative case. The alif is just there to visually support that '-an' sound at the end of the word.
I've also seen 'ninety' written as تسعين. Why is it تسعون here?
The 'tens' numbers (20 to 90) change their ending based on their grammatical role. They end in ـون (-uuna) when they are the subject of the sentence, and ـين (-iina) when they are an object or come after a preposition. Here, 'ninety' is the subject of the sentence, so it uses تسعون.
Where is the word for 'there are' in this sentence?
Arabic doesn't have a specific word for 'there is' or 'there are'. Instead, you create this meaning by putting a location phrase like في القرية (in the village) at the very beginning of the sentence. Literally, this sentence reads 'In the village [are] ninety houses'.
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