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Lesson 21 - The Imperfect (Present Tense) Verb الفعل المضارع


We learnt before what verbs are and we also learnt in sha’a Allah the Past Tense. Today we will start to learn about the Imperfect Verb, called imperfect because of the continuation of the action, and at the same time it is the Present Tense.


An important thing to note is, please carefully learn the previous lessons before even proceeding to the new lessons, as everything should sit what we have learnt before, before we can even move on to other lessons. It is very important that you do not depend only on the resources given here, which are in sha’a Allah helpful to you, but also put own effort into searching these topics.


As mentioned, this is the basic level and we will not go too deep into the topics.



The Imperfect Verb ( Present Tense ) – الْفِعْلُ الْمُضَارِعُ 



Before mentioning anything about the Imperfect Verb, there must be said a very important thing, which is that just like in the English language, in the Arabic language we also come across the ACTIVE and the PASSIVE voice. For now, we will only focus on the active voice, be it past or present, and in sha’a Allah when we pass the basic level we will talk about this more in sha’a Allah.



What is an Imperfect Verb?



It is a verb where the action is ongoing, meaning it is happening now and continuing, and therefore the name Imperfect Verb for an action which did not finish yet.


We are all familiar with what The Present Tense means, but it is very important to know that the Imperfect Verb is not only used for the present, but rather it is also used for an action that will happen in the future.


Unlike the Past Tense, which is suffixed by certain endings, for the Imperfect verb we have both, prefixes and suffixes.


We learnt in one of the previous lessons that we use the model of ف ع ل for the base of the verb, and we will do it this time too in sha’a Allah. This base, when it comes to the Imperfect Verb, will get a prefix and depending on which number, gender or person it will also get a suffix. And yes, this must be learnt by heart.


The verb will be prefixed with one of the 4 letters: أ ي ت ن depending on what person it is and will also get suffixes which are same in some and different for others.


We learnt before that for the Past Verb we will use فَعَلَ as a BASE. This time we will add one more model for the Imperfect Verb to it, and say يَفْعَلُ , so in a complete way we will say: فَعَلَ يَفْعَلُ where fa’ala means HE DID and yaf’alu means HE IS/ WILL BE DOING.




The form yaf’alu is not the only form of the Imperfect Verb, just like fa’ala is not the only form for the Past Tense Verb which we learnt before. There are other 2 forms besides fa’ala and yes, every form MUST be LEARNT BY HEART. Let us see the other forms:




As previously mentioned, the BASE is prefixed and suffixed with some letters. Let us look at how this looks like and what those prefixes and suffixes are:




This is for the FORM 1 and it is the same thing for FORM 2 and 3, only difference will be the harakah ( vowel sign ) in the middle of the base ( on the ع of the verb ).


It is very important to memorize these suffixes and prefixes and as mentioned before, before proceeding to any next lesson, it is very important to learn it properly so that it sits and then to move on to the next part, because the more we move on, the more there is to learn. Also very important is to learn vocabulary, and you can find the vocabulary book of Madinah Book 1 in the next post, as well as the Madinah Book 1.


We hope that this lesson was clear in sha’a Allah and now it is up to you to take some verbs and to practice to conjugate them in past and present tense.


Here is some help for practice with verbs and verb forms:


ضَرَبَ يَضْرِبُ  he hit- he is hitting/ will hit


ذَهَبَ يَذْهَبُ He went- he is going/ will go


جَلَسَ يَجْلِسُ  he sat- he is sitting/ will sit


خَرَجَ يَخْرُجُ  he went out- he is going out/ will go out


خَلَقَ يَخْلُقُ  he made/ created- he is making/ creating/ will create/make


سَمِعَ يَسْمَعُ he heard- he is hearing/ will hear

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