Questions & Answers about لا، أنا إنجليزي.
Where is the word for "am" in this sentence?
In Arabic, there is no present tense verb for "to be" (am, is, are). You just put the pronoun أنا (I) right next to the adjective إنجليزي (English) to mean "I am English". This is called an equational or verbless sentence.
Why does إنجليزي end with that long "ee" sound?
The ي at the end is a special suffix used to form nationalities or indicate origin. It turns a place name into an adjective, so it changes the base word for England into the adjective "English".
How does this sentence change if a woman is speaking?
Adjectives must match the gender of the person they describe. If a woman is speaking, she would add the feminine ending taa marbuuta (ة) to the end of the nationality, making it إنجليزية (injileeziyya). The word for "I" (أنا) stays exactly the same for both men and women.
Why isn't the word for "English" capitalized here like it is in English?
Arabic does not have capital letters! Whether a word is a nationality, a person's name, or the first word of a sentence, the letters are written exactly the same way.
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