القميص حساس وصوفي.

The woollen shirt is delicate.

Breakdown of القميص حساس وصوفي.

• قميص: shirt
• حساس: delicate; sensitive
• صوفي: woollen; made of wool

Questions & Answers about القميص حساس وصوفي.

Why is there no separate word for is in this sentence?

In Arabic, the present tense often has no written or spoken verb for is/are in simple statements like this.

So:

القميص حساس وصوفي

literally looks like:

the shirt delicate and woolen

but it means:

The shirt is delicate and woolen.

This is normal in both Standard Arabic and Levantine-style speech. If you wanted was, then you would usually add a past-tense verb such as كان.

Why do حساس and صوفي come after القميص?

Arabic normally puts descriptive words after the noun.

So instead of English-style delicate shirt, Arabic uses the order:

shirt + delicate

In this sentence, though, the structure is even more specifically:

subject + predicate

So:

• القميص = the shirt
• حساس وصوفي = delicate and woolen

That gives the full meaning The shirt is delicate and woolen.

Why don’t حساس and صوفي have ال on them too?

Because here they are predicate adjectives, not part of one long noun phrase.

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