Arabic 10 — The Fāṭimah passage — study, work, and the hospital فاطِمَةُ طالِبَةٌ وعامِلَةٌ

1 · The passage, part one — Fāṭimah's day #

فاطِمَةُ طالِبَةٌ تَدْرُسُ في الجامِعَةِ، وتَعْمَلُ في أَحَدِ مَصانِعِ المَلابِسِ. تَذْهَبُ إلى الكُلِّيَّةِ بِالحافِلَةِ.

Fāṭimatu ṭālibatun tadrusu fī l-jāmiʿati, wa-taʿmalu fī aḥadi maṣāniʿi l-malābisi. Tadhhabu ilā l-kulliyyati bi-l-ḥāfilati.

"Fāṭimah is a student who studies at the university, and she works in one of the clothes factories. She goes to the college by bus."

تَبْدَأُ الدِّراسَةُ في الكُلِّيَّةِ السّاعَةَ الثّامِنَةَ صَباحاً، وتَنْتَهي السّاعَةَ الثّانِيَةَ بَعْدَ الظُّهْرِ. تَتَناوَلُ فاطِمَةُ الغَداءَ في مَطْعَمِ الكُلِّيَّةِ.

Tabdaʾu d-dirāsatu fī l-kulliyyati s-sāʿata th-thāminata ṣabāḥan, wa-tantahī s-sāʿata th-thāniyata baʿda ẓ-ẓuhri. Tatanāwalu Fāṭimatu l-ghadāʾa fī maṭʿami l-kulliyyati.

"Study at the college begins at eight in the morning and ends at two in the afternoon. Fāṭimah has lunch in the college restaurant."

بَعْدَ الغَداءِ تَذْهَبُ إلى المَصْنَعِ بِالقِطارِ. يَبْدَأُ العَمَلُ في المَصْنَعِ السّاعَةَ الرّابِعَةَ مَساءً ويَنْتَهي السّاعَةَ الثّامِنَةَ.

Baʿda l-ghadāʾi tadhhabu ilā l-maṣnaʿi bi-l-qiṭāri. Yabdaʾu l-ʿamalu fī l-maṣnaʿi s-sāʿata r-rābiʿata masāʾan wa-yantahī s-sāʿata th-thāminata.

"After lunch she goes to the factory by train. Work at the factory begins at four in the evening and ends at eight."

2 · Telling the time — feminine ordinals in naṣb #

Every clock time in this passage is built the same way, and it is worth learning as one pattern:

السّاعَةَ + [feminine ordinal] + [part of the day]

Three things are happening at once here:

1. The ordinal is feminine — الثّامِنَة, الثّانِيَة, الرّابِعَة, not الثّامِن — because it describes السّاعَة, which is feminine. The adjective follows its mawṣūf.
2. Both words are in naṣb — as-sāʿata th-thāminata — because the phrase is an adverb of time (ظَرْف زَمان), which takes naṣb. And since الثّامِنَة is a ṣifah to السّاعَة, it takes naṣb too, exactly as the ṣifah rule requires.
3. صَباحاً and مَساءً are also manṣūb with tanwīn — likewise adverbs of time.

3 · How long? — the arithmetic the passage expects you to do #

The passage never states a duration. It states start and end times and leaves you to subtract — which is exactly what the book's exercises test:

4 · The bāʾ of means #

بِالحافِلَةِ · بِالقِطارِ — the بِـ here is the bāʾ of instrument or means (bāʾ al-istiʿānah): it answers "by what?" and puts the following noun in jarr, as every ḥarf jarr does (L02).

بِـ + الحافِلَة → بِالحافِلَةِ. The same bāʾ is what you already met in verbs with fixed prepositions back in L01.

5 · The passage, part two — the fainting and the hospital #

في الأُسْبوعِ الماضي أُغْمِيَ عَلى فاطِمَةَ في الجامِعَةِ، أَخَذَتْها صَديقاتُها إلى المُسْتَشْفى، وحينَما أَفاقَتْ فاطِمَةُ وَجَدَتْ نَفْسَها في غُرْفَةِ الفَحْصِ مَعَ الطَّبيبَةِ.

Fī l-usbūʿi l-māḍī ughmiya ʿalā Fāṭimata fī l-jāmiʿati, akhadhat-hā ṣadīqātuhā ilā l-mustashfā, wa-ḥīnamā afāqat Fāṭimatu wajadat nafsahā fī ghurfati l-faḥṣi maʿa ṭ-ṭabībati.

"Last week Fāṭimah fainted at the university. Her friends took her to the hospital, and when she came round she found herself in the examination room with the (female) doctor."

حَضَرَ والِدُ فاطِمَةَ ووالِدَتُها إلى المُسْتَشْفى. قابَلَ والِدُها كَبيرَ الأَطِبّاءِ.

Ḥaḍara wālidu Fāṭimata wa-wālidatuhā ilā l-mustashfā. Qābala wāliduhā kabīra l-aṭibbāʾi.

"Fāṭimah's father and her mother came to the hospital. Her father met the chief of the doctors."

قَرَأَ كَبيرُ الأَطِبّاءِ التَّقْريرَ الطِّبِّيَّ وقالَ لِوالِدِها: فاطِمَةُ بِخَيْرٍ والحَمْدُ للهِ، لَكِنَّها تَحْتاجُ إلى الرّاحَةِ؛ هِيَ تَعْمَلُ وتَدْرُسُ. يَجِبُ أَنْ تَرْتاحَ، ويَجِبُ أَنْ تَتَناوَلَ طَعاماً جَيِّداً.

Qaraʾa kabīru l-aṭibbāʾi t-taqrīra ṭ-ṭibbiyya wa-qāla li-wālidihā: Fāṭimatu bi-khayrin wa-l-ḥamdu li-llāh, lākinnahā taḥtāju ilā r-rāḥati; hiya taʿmalu wa-tadrusu. Yajibu an tartāḥa, wa-yajibu an tatanāwala ṭaʿāman jayyidan.

"The chief of the doctors read the medical report and said to her father: Fāṭimah is well, al-ḥamdu li-llāh, but she needs rest — she works and she studies. She must rest, and she must eat good food."

6 · أُغْمِيَ عَلَيْها — a majhūl verb, and why it has no doer #

أُغْمِيَ ughmiya is a majhūl — a passive verb, its subject unnamed. Literally it is "it was made to swoon upon [her]"; in plain English, "she fainted."

Contrast with أَفاقَتْ afāqat — "she came round" — which is active: she is the one who did it. The passage puts the two beside each other, one passive and one active, in the same sentence.

7 · The verb forms in this passage #

The passage runs almost entirely on the muḍāriʿ in part one (habitual, everyday routine) and on the māḍī in part two (a single past event). Watch that switch — it is doing real work.

8 · يَجِبُ أَنْ + the manṣūb present #

يَجِبُ أَنْ تَرْتاحَ · وَيَجِبُ أَنْ تَتَناوَلَ

يَجِبُ — "it is necessary, it is obligatory" — is followed by أَنْ, and أَنْ is one of the particles of naṣb: the muḍāriʿ after it takes a fatḥah, not a ḍammah.

This is the same family of naṣb particles L03 introduced with لَنْ. The ending is the whole signal — tartāḥu is a statement, an tartāḥa is "that she rest."

9 · Nouns and their plurals #

10 · Two iḍāfah chains worth reading slowly #

أَحَدِ مَصانِعِ المَلابِسِ — literally "one of the factories of clothes." Three nouns in a chain: only the last carries the definite article, and the nouns before it are muḍāf and take no الـ. Aḥadi ends in kasrah because it follows في; maṣāniʿi ends in kasrah because it is the muḍāf ilayh of أَحَد (and muḍāf in turn to المَلابِس).

كَبيرُ الأَطِبّاءِ — "the chief of the doctors." Same structure. And note it is masculine: كَبيرُ, not كَبيرَة. The person Fāṭimah's father met is not the same person she woke up next to — that was الطَّبيبَة, feminine. The passage is careful about this, and it is the kind of detail the book's own comprehension questions live on.

11 · What the doctor's verdict actually says #

Read the logic, not just the words: she is not ill. The diagnosis is that she works and she studies — the two verbs from the very first line of the passage come back here as the explanation. The passage is built as a loop: her timetable in part one is the cause in part two.

لَكِنَّها — lākinnahā, "but she…" — is لَكِنَّ with the attached pronoun ـها. Like إِنَّ, it puts the noun after it in naṣb; here that noun is the pronoun itself.