Lesson 12

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are very important in all languages. These pronouns in Arabic are like English except two differences.

In English when we use “You” in singular, we cannot know the gender of this “You” only after we know the gender of the object that refers to this “You”. Let’s take an example for this situation:

You are a student

We don’t know the gender of “You” here, only after we know the gender of this student. In Arabic “You” in singular has a clear gender as you will see.

The second difference is there is no “It” in Arabic. We use “He” or “She” instead of “It”.

Let’s get to know these pronouns in Arabic:

English	Arabic	Pronunciation
I	انا
He	هو
She	هى
You (singular masculine)	انت
You (singular feminine)	انتى
You (plural)	انتوا
We	احنا
They	همَّ

There is a little difference between classical Arabic and slang. This little difference is in writing and pronunciation. Let me explain that to you:

English	Arabic	Pronunciation
I	أنا
He	هو
She	هى
You (singular masculine)	أنتَ
You (singular feminine)	أنتِ
You (plural)	أنتم
We	نحن
They	هُمْ

As I said: we do not write or pronounce the verb “Be” in present tense. So, when I want to say “I am”, I only say “انا”. This applies to the rest of the pronouns.

By the way, the verb “Be” takes these forms in Arabic:

English	Arabic	Pronunciation
I am	أكون
He is	يكون
She is	تكون
You are (singular masculine)	تكون
You are (singular famine)	تكونى
You are (plural)	تكونوا
We are	نكون
They are	يكونوا