Learn Arabic (Modern Standard): الصحة النفسية مهمة مثل الصحة الجسدية. - Psychological health is as important as physical health.

الصحة النفسية مهمة مثل الصحة الجسدية.as-sihhatu an-nafsiyyatu muhimmatun mithla as-sihhati al-jasadiyyati

Psychological health is as important as physical health.

Breakdown of الصحة النفسية مهمة مثل الصحة الجسدية.

health; correctness, truth (of a claim)

جسديjasadiyy

Questions & Answers about الصحة النفسية مهمة مثل الصحة الجسدية.

Why do we use the adjectives النفسية and الجسدية instead of the base nouns for 'mind' and 'body'?

These are relational adjectives, known as Nisba adjectives. By adding the feminine suffix ـيّة to the base nouns نفس (soul/mind) and جسد (body), we turn them into the adjectives 'psychological' and 'physical' so they can agree with the feminine noun الصحة (health).

Why isn't the word for important written with the definite article as المهمة?

This is a standard nominal sentence (a sentence without a verb). الصحة النفسية is the definite subject, and مهمة is the indefinite predicate giving information about that subject. If you added the definite article to make it الصحة النفسية المهمة, it would mean 'the important psychological health' and the sentence would be incomplete.

The English translation says 'as important as,' but the Arabic just uses مثل. How does this structure work?

Arabic often expresses the English 'as [adjective] as' structure simply by stating the adjective followed by مثل (like or similar to). Literally, this sentence reads 'Psychological health is important like physical health.' You do not need a complex grammatical structure to make this type of equal comparison.

If I were reading this with full case endings (tashkeel), what case would the second الصحة take after مثل?

It would take the genitive case (majrur) and end with a kasra. The word مثل functions as the first part of an idafa (possessive construction) here, which forces the noun immediately following it into the genitive case.