Lesson 4

Indefinite articles (a/an)

After we have learnt Arabic alphabet, I think we should learn some Arabic words in order to increase our understanding of writing and reading these letters.

Tips:

·       Look, listen, and repeat after me

·  Write each word many times, and do not be upset if you find your writing is not good. You will master them after a while

English word	Arabic word	Pronunciation
A man	رجل
A woman	ست or مراة
A boy	ولد
A girl	بنت
A house	بيت
An apartment	شقة
A street	شارع
A car	عربية
A book	كتاب
A notebook	كراسة
A pen	قلم
An airplane	طيارة

I think your understanding is better now.

In English when we want to talk about a singular noun we must use the article “a” or “an” before it.

These articles mean “one”. In Arabic “one” is “واحد”, where we pronounce it like this ‘Wa-head’.

In Arabic we do not use any of these articles. We just use the noun without any article proceeds it, to signify that noun is singular.

For example, when we want to say “a book” we do not say: “واحد كتاب”, but we say: “كتاب”.

Let’s take some examples:

Noun	Wrong	Right
A man	واحد رجل	رجل
A dog	واحد كلب	كلب
An apartment	واحد شقه	شقة
A pen	واحد قلم	قلم