Breakdown of إذا انغلق الباب، لن ندخل.
الal
the
بابbâbun
door
دخلdakhala
to enter
لنlan
will not
إذاidhâ
if
انغلقingalaqa
to close (intransitive)
Questions & Answers about إذا انغلق الباب، لن ندخل.
The English translation says "closes," but isn't انغلق a past tense verb?
Yes, it is! In Arabic, the word إذا (if) is almost always followed by a past tense verb, even when talking about something that might happen in the future. You can think of it as literally meaning "If the door has closed..."
Why use the Form VII verb انغلق here instead of a basic Form I verb for closing?
Form VII verbs, which usually add the prefix "in-" to a root, are mostly intransitive. This means they describe an action happening to the subject without a specific doer. We use انغلق because the door is closing itself or undergoing a change in state, rather than a person closing the door.
How would you conjugate this Form VII verb in the present tense to say "the door is closing"?
The present tense pattern for a masculine Form VII verb is "yanfa'il". For the root gh-l-q, you drop the past-tense prefix and apply this pattern to get ينغلق (yan-gha-liq).
Why is لن used here, and does it change how we pronounce the verb ندخل?
لن means "will not" and is used specifically to negate future actions. When you use لن, the present tense verb that follows it must end with a "fatha" (a short "a" sound). So, we pronounce it "lan nadkhula" instead of the normal "nadkhulu".
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