Questions & Answers about هذا الكرسي بني.
Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?
In Arabic, sentences that describe what something is (called nominal sentences) don't use a word for "is" or "are" in the present tense. You simply put the subject (هذا الكرسي) right next to its description (بني).
Why does it say هذا الكرسي (this the chair) instead of just هذا كرسي?
In Arabic, when you want to say "this [noun]" as a single phrase (like "this chair"), the noun must have the definite article ال (the) attached to it. If you wrote هذا كرسي without ال, it would change the meaning to "This is a chair."
Why doesn't the color word بني (brown) also take ال (the) to match the chair?
Because بني is the predicate—the new information you are giving about the chair. If you added ال to make it هذا الكرسي البني, it would mean the phrase "This brown chair..." and the sentence would be incomplete because you haven't given any news about what the brown chair is doing!
The word for brown, بني, looks like it is built from another word. Where does it come from?
It comes from the word بن, which means "coffee beans." By adding the double "ee" sound at the end (creating a relational adjective), it literally translates to "coffee-related" or "coffee-colored." This is how Arabic expresses the color brown!