To be or not to be? Arabic simply said :bugs-no: to verb to be :gigachad-hd:

Yes, we don’t use verb to be (in the present tense).

 

In Arabic, we have two types of sentences:

If a sentence begins with a noun (or pronoun), that’s a nominal sentence.

If a sentence begins with a verb, that’s a verbal sentence.

 

Let’s talk about the nominal sentence. It refers to the present tense, and does not require verb to be. It consists of two parts:

مُبتَدَأ

mubtada’ the subject of a nominal sentence (literally means the noun that starts the sentence)

خَبَر

khabar the predicate of a nominal sentence “the comment”. The word also means a piece of news.  

Examples:

أَنتَ أَحمَد

You [are] Ahmad ‘anta ‘aHmad

 

عَلي سَعيد

Ali [is] happy عalii saعiid

 

 

Arabic doesn’t have an indefinite article fyi.

Think of it this way: when you read or hear a sentence that begins with a noun, that is a "setup" and so you'd just wait for the "punchline" i.e. the predicate (خبر, comment, news).

This means you can express a lot in Arabic without knowing any verbs :cool-bean:

 

Verbal sentences:

 

A verbal sentence starts with a verb, and has this basic word order: verb + subject + object or complement.

فَتَحَ الكَلب الباب

The dog opened the door fataHa al-kalb al-baab

 

كَتَبَ الوَلَد اِسمه

The boy wrote his name kataba al-walad ‘ismh