Breakdown of عشت طفولتي في بيت قديم.
فيfî
in / about, regarding
بيتbayt
house
قديمqadîm
old
يi
my / me (after a preposition)
عاشâsha
to live
طفولةtufûla
childhood
Questions & Answers about عشت طفولتي في بيت قديم.
Why is the word for "I lived" written as عشت instead of keeping the long "aa" sound from the root?
عشت comes from the verb عاش (he lived), which is a "hollow verb" meaning its middle root letter is a long vowel. When conjugating hollow verbs in the past tense for "I" (and "you" or "we"), Arabic drops the long middle vowel to avoid having two silent consonants in a row. So, the long "aa" is removed, and it becomes عشت.
Since the middle vowel disappears in عشت, how do we know to pronounce the first letter with an "i" sound (kasra) rather than a "u" sound (damma)?
It depends on the original root of the verb. The root of عاش originally has a ي (ya) as its middle letter (which you can hear in the present tense: يعيش, he lives). When the middle letter is a ي, the shortened past tense gets an "i" sound (عِشت). If the middle root letter was a و (waw), like in قال (he said), it would take a "u" sound (قُلت).
How is the word طفولتي (my childhood) formed?
It is built from the noun طفولة (childhood) plus the attached pronoun ي (my). Notice that when you add a suffix to a word ending in a taa marbuta (ة), the ة "opens up" into a regular ت before attaching the ending. So طفولة + ي becomes طفولتي.
Why does قديم (old) come after بيت (house)?
In Arabic, adjectives always come after the noun they describe. Also, remember that adjectives must match their noun in gender. Since بيت is a masculine noun, قديم is also in its masculine form (without a taa marbuta at the end).
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