أقمنا في فندق قريب من البحر.aqamnâ fî funduqin qarîbin mina l-bahr
We stayed at a hotel near the sea.
Breakdown of أقمنا في فندق قريب من البحر.
الal
the
فيfî
in / about, regarding
بحرbahr
sea
منmin
from
فندقfunduq
hotel
قريبqarîb
near, close
أقامaqâma
to reside, to stay (in a place)
Questions & Answers about أقمنا في فندق قريب من البحر.
Why does the verb أقمنا drop the long 'a' sound found in its base form أقام?
This is a Form IV hollow verb, meaning its middle root letter is weak. When conjugated for 'we' in the past tense, the final letter of the root loses its vowel. Arabic does not allow a long vowel followed immediately by an unvoweled consonant, so the long 'a' is dropped to make أقمنا instead of 'aqaamna'.
Why is the preposition من used here instead of just saying قريب البحر?
The adjective قريب (near or close) is almost always paired with the preposition من (from) when stating what something is near. While English simply says 'near the sea', the Arabic phrasing literally translates to 'close from the sea'.
If I wanted to say 'the hotel near the sea', how would the grammar of فندق قريب change?
You would need to make both the noun and its adjective definite by adding the prefix ال to both. It would become الفندق القريب من البحر. In the current sentence, both are indefinite because the meaning is 'a hotel', so both words drop the ال to match each other.
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