Arabic 5 — Aqsām al-kalimah + guided expression أَقْسَامُ الكَلِمَةِ وَالتَّعْبِيرُ المُوَجَّهُ

1 · أَقْسَامُ الكَلِمَةِ — what the phrase means #

• قِسْم (qism), plural أَقْسَام (aqsām) = a division / section. In a university each faculty has its departments, and each of those is a qism — but here it does not mean "department": here aqsām means kinds / categories.
• كَلِمَة (kalimah) = a word.
• So أَقْسَامُ الكَلِمَةِ = "the kinds of the word" — how every Arabic word is classified.

This threefold split is the well-known division. Some scholars subdivide further, but the instruction is plain: take it as three.

2 · The three kinds and their tests #

3 · اِسْم — proper nouns and common nouns #

عَلَم (ʿalam) = a proper noun, the name given to one particular person, town or thing. Examples: مُحَمَّد (Muḥammad), زَيْنَب (Zaynab). A modern analogy: "Samsung" is the name of one particular make of phone — that is a ʿalam.

Common nouns from the same drill:

• The alif-lām test: it is to nouns that ال attaches — though it can be absent. مُحَمَّد، زَيْنَب، خِيَار come without it; النَّاس، الوَقْت، المَاء، الدَّجَاج carry it.

4 · فِعْل — and the letter-count of past vs present #

The second kind is the verb. Count the letters in the māḍī against the muḍāriʿ:

The imperative is a verb too. اِذْهَبْ (idhhab, "go!"), تَنَاوَلْ (tanāwal, "take! / eat!") and اِتَّبِعْ (ittabiʿ, "follow!") are أَمْر (imperatives) — so the fiʿl class covers past, present and imperative alike.

5 · حَرْف — the particle #

A ḥarf carries no meaning standing alone. Take فِي (fī): by itself it means nothing; we use it for "in," which is its commonest sense, and it has roughly nine senses in all. The particle takes its meaning from the sentence it sits in.

Two things called "ḥarf" — do not confuse them #

Kinds of particle #

• حُرُوفُ الجَرِّ (ḥurūf al-jarr, the prepositions): مِنْ (min, most often "from"), عَلَى (ʿalā, "on / upon"), فِي (fī, "in"), and the لِ of لِلنَّاسِ. When they enter a sentence they change both the meaning and the vowel-endings (حَرَكَات) of what follows.
• وَ of the oath — a ḥarf that puts a kasrah on the word after it: وَاللهِ (wallāhi) = "by Allah," i.e. "this is the truth."
• حَرْف عَطْف (particle of conjunction): أَوْ (aw) = "or" — used to join words to one another. Note the trap: أَوْ is NOT a ḥarf jarr, it is a ḥarf ʿaṭf.
• حَرْف نَصْب: أَنْ (an) comes before a present verb and puts it in naṣb — the sense becomes "to do": أَنْ يَذْهَبَ (an yadhhaba) = "to go," أَنْ يَتَنَاوَلَ = "to eat," أَنْ يَشْرَبَ = "to drink." (The details of naṣb come in later lessons.)
• لَمْ before a مُضَارِع puts a sukūn on it (that is jazm) — "you must know this." You met this in Lesson 3.

6 · The classification drill — اِسْماً، فِعْلاً، حَرْفاً #

The words are set out; say of each: is it a noun, a verb or a particle?

7 · The unit's sentences — parse the underlined word #

The rubric is الكَلِمَةُ المُخَطَّطُ تَحْتَهَا — "the word underlined beneath": say what it is. Every sentence in the exercise belongs to this unit, العِنَايَةُ بِالصِّحَّةِ, so learn the grammar and read these sentences again and again until they are familiar. The tone is set by اِبْتَعِدْ عَنِ السُّكَّرِ (ibtaʿid ʿani-s-sukkar) — "keep away from sugar."

The sentences below follow the class's line-by-line reading; read the exact wording from the textbook.

Why مِنْ has to be there (sentences 6 and 8) #

كَثِيراً ("a lot") and قَلِيلاً ("a little") are general, unspecified on their own — a lot of what? مِنْ comes in to specify: نَتَنَاوَلُ كَثِيراً مِنَ السَّمَكِ = "we eat a lot of fish"; يَأْكُلُونَ قَلِيلاً مِنَ اللَّحْمِ = "they eat little of meat." Same trick, both sentences.

The Qur'anic sentences in the same exercise #

Taking فِيهِ شِفَاءٌ لِلنَّاسِ apart, word by word, is the model:

• فِيهِ = فِي (a ḥarf) + the attached pronoun ـهِ ("it") — the hu / hum endings that join onto it.
• شِفَاءٌ = an اِسْم.
• لِلنَّاسِ = two things: لِ, a حَرْف جَرّ, plus النَّاس, an اِسْم.

8 · Why classify at all — the first step to الإِعْرَاب #

This drill is the first stage of a whole discipline: الإِعْرَاب (al-iʿrāb). The comparison: iʿrāb is to Arabic sentences what tafsīr is to Qur'anic verses — for each sentence you say which word is the subject (mubtadaʾ / fāʿil), which the predicate, which the object, and how each word connects to the next. To do any of that you must first be able to say, of every word, whether it is a noun, a verb or a particle. Hence: this exercise is compulsory for everyone.

9 · التَّعْبِيرُ المُوَجَّهُ — guided expression (unscramble) #

The second half is writing. التَّعْبِيرُ المُوَجَّهُ (at-taʿbīr al-muwajjah, "guided expression") gives you the words of a sentence jumbled, and you put them in the right order. They are all sentences already studied — so the drill is word order, not new vocabulary.

The sentences below follow the class's line-by-line reading; read the exact wording from the textbook.

Points made while ordering them:

• أَشْعُرُ (ashʿuru) = "I feel"; كُنْتُ أَشْعُرُ = "I was feeling"; مِثْلَكَ = "like you."
• أَخَذَ (akhadha) = "he took," and تَنَاوَلَ (tanāwala) likewise — it covers "took," "ate," and "set about [doing]." So yatanāwalu here is simply "he eats."
• The أَصْبَحَ frame keeps the same shape every time: أَصْبَحَ → the subject phrase → the verb phrase (aṣbaḥa yanāmūn, aṣbaḥa yattabiʿūn), as in sentence 7 of §7.
• An encouragement: don't worry about getting it wrong — being wrong is not the issue; not trying is worse than the mistake.

10 · Picture composition — traditional vs modern food #

Two pictures, three sentences each, comparing today's food with the food of the past.

• الصُّورَةُ عَلَى اليَمِينِ، الطَّعَامُ التَّقْلِيدِيُّ — the picture on the right is traditional food (the Sri Lankan food we grew up on). In it: الخُبْزُ، البَيْضُ، الجُبْنُ، الزَّيْتُونُ — bread, eggs, cheese, olives.
• الطَّعَامُ عَلَى اليَسَارِ، الطَّعَامُ الحَدِيثُ — on the left, modern food: one pizza that everyone eats together.

Traditional food — the three sentences #

كَانَ + a present verb = "used to." That is the pattern to remember: كَانَ النَّاسُ يَأْكُلُونَ is not "people ate once" but "people used to eat."

Modern food — the three sentences #

• الوَجَبَاتُ السَّرِيعَةُ (al-wajabāt as-sarīʿah) = fast food, literally "the quick meals."
• نُشَاهِدُ / نَرَى = "we see, we observe."
• سَبَب (sabab) = "cause, reason"; the verb is يُسَبِّبُ (yusabbibu, "it causes") — yusabbibu amrāḍan khaṭīrah, "it causes dangerous diseases."

11 · One نَصِيحَة per picture — advice in the imperative #

The last exercise: from each picture, give one piece of advice about food and health. Four are prohibitions (لا + jussive) and the last is a positive command.

• Also shown: السَّمَكُ المَشْوِيُّ (as-samak al-mashwī) = grilled fish — the picture of fish on the barbecue, a food many like; pronounce it as-samaku-l-mashwī.
• القَهْوَةُ بِالحَلِيبِ (al-qahwah bi-l-ḥalīb) = "coffee with milk."
• Vocabulary of the last picture: الخُضْرَوَات (al-khuḍrawāt) = vegetables · الفَوَاكِه (al-fawākih) = fruits · السَّلَطَة (as-salaṭah) = salad.

12 · New vocabulary #

13 · Practice #

1. Do the classification exercise for every sentence: of each underlined word say اسم، فعل or حرف — it is compulsory, and it is the doorway to iʿrāb.
2. Read the unit's sentences again and again until they are familiar — they all sit under العِنَايَةُ بِالصِّحَّةِ.
3. Write out in full all the composition sentences (the five unscrambled ones + the six picture sentences).
4. Look at the pictures yourself and write more sentences of the same kind, using different words each time.