By now you will probably realized that "everything in Arabic is all about the consonants." This is a very new concept for speakers of Indo-european languages such as English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Farsi, etc, where vowels and consonants have equal importance.
English:
big: large
bog: a swamp
bug: an insect
bag: a sack
keep: to hold onto
cap: a hat
Kip: a name
cope: to deal with
cop: a police officer
However, in Arabic, vowels are not as important, since the meaning is contained in the consonants:
Saghiir and iSghéér are the same word.
kabiir and kibaar both mean "big" but one is singular and one is plural.
yaktub vs. yaktob vs. yektob (no difference- one is formal, two are colloquial)
mu3allima vs. m3allma vs. m3éllme (same word- one is formal, two are colloquial)
tlaat vs. telaatii vs. thalaatha (same word pronounced differently by region)
If you get the important consonants in a row, but can't remember the right vowels, chances are people will still understand you as long as you conjugate the verbs correctly (ya vs. ta vs. a etc). Sometimes, it does make a difference in meaning, as we will see later. However, vowels in Arabic are usually so unimportant that they are not even written in books, magazines, and newspapers!
The important point of this lesson is that the consonants are everything in Arabic.
English:
big: large
bog: a swamp
bug: an insect
bag: a sack
keep: to hold onto
cap: a hat
Kip: a name
cope: to deal with
cop: a police officer
However, in Arabic, vowels are not as important, since the meaning is contained in the consonants:
Saghiir and iSghéér are the same word.
kabiir and kibaar both mean "big" but one is singular and one is plural.
yaktub vs. yaktob vs. yektob (no difference- one is formal, two are colloquial)
mu3allima vs. m3allma vs. m3éllme (same word- one is formal, two are colloquial)
tlaat vs. telaatii vs. thalaatha (same word pronounced differently by region)
If you get the important consonants in a row, but can't remember the right vowels, chances are people will still understand you as long as you conjugate the verbs correctly (ya vs. ta vs. a etc). Sometimes, it does make a difference in meaning, as we will see later. However, vowels in Arabic are usually so unimportant that they are not even written in books, magazines, and newspapers!
The important point of this lesson is that the consonants are everything in Arabic.
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