Arabic · Unit 7 · Lesson 7

Study

One win: say what you study and where, say what you will be, and, for the first time in this course, say what somebody did. The past tense opens here, and it opens on seven verbs you already own.

Source: the class textbook, Unit 7 (book pp.163–188) · ≈25 minutes · builds on Lesson 6 · the completed number forms are in the numbers chapter, عَنْ in the prepositions chapter

1. The third shape: he did it

You can say he washes and wash! Unit 7 adds the one that was missing. Watch it build, and say each line before the caption:

The book's own table (p.174, and frame 3 of the summary). Read each row across:

2. Where the person hides

This is the one thing worth carrying out of the lesson. The present and the past mark the person at opposite ends of the word:

The book puts the she-form straight into dialogue 1, and gives it the joining vowel you know, because الـ follows:

بَدَأَتِ الحِصَّةُ، وجاءَ المُعَلِّمُ. هَيّا بِنا إِلى الصَّفِّ. 🔊

The class has started, and the teacher has come. Let's go to the classroom. بَدَأَتْ on its own ends silent; in front of الـ it takes the -i that Lesson 5 §5 taught.

3. I will be a teacher

Arabic says I am a student with no verb at all: أَنا طالِبٌ. But I will be needs one, and the book drills it (frame 1):

🔊 And about somebody else: سَيَكونُ مُدَرِّساً · سَتَكونُ طَبيبَةً 🔊, both from the reading passages on p.184.

4. The school week

Dialogue 1 is two boys reading a timetable off the wall. Everything on it is a list you can learn as a list:

One word does a lot of work here: دِراسِيّ, built from دِراسَة exactly as Unit 1 built مِصْرِيّ from مِصْر. Add it to a noun and the noun becomes the school version of itself:

جَدْوَلٌ دِراسِيٌّ · عامٌ دِراسِيٌّ · يَوْمٌ دِراسِيٌّ · مَوادُّ دِراسِيَّةٌ 🔊

a timetable · a school year · a school day · school subjects.

5. At which faculty?

Dialogue 2 is two women meeting at university. Four frames carry the whole conversation, and you have three of them already:

Drill 4 turns the question onto seven verbs you own. Say each pair aloud, to a man and then to a woman:

One spelling detail: تَقْرَأُ becomes تَقْرَئينَ. The hamza cannot sit on an alif with a ي sound coming, so it moves onto a yāʾ seat. Same word, same ending, different chair.

6. Far from, near to

Exam 2 printed بَعيدٌ عَنِ البَيْتِ once, inside an error to correct, and this course told you it was not yet yours. Unit 7 makes it a frame and drills seven of them (frame 5):

Both join with -i in front of الـ: عَنِ · مِنَ. And the describing word agrees with whatever is far or near, so it is بَعيدٌ for a he-noun and بَعيدَةٌ for a she-noun. The book's own seven pairs:

🔊 عَنْ joins the ledger in the prepositions chapter, which now covers Units 1–7.

7. One of it, more than one of it

Drill 2 on p.170 asks you to pair a word with its plural. Every pair is a word you already have, so the exercise is not new vocabulary: it is being asked to hold both halves at once.

There is no single rule to learn here. صَلاة adds an ending; the other four rebuild the word from the inside. Learn the plural with the word, as you did with غُرْفَة / غُرَف in Unit 3.

8. The ة that comes and goes

Unit 3 taught counting with the rule that the number takes the opposite gender, and this course could only show you half of it, because every noun the book had counted was feminine. Unit 7 finally counts a masculine one, and the missing half appears:

The book puts both in one breath in its listening text:

يَدْرُسُ أَحْمَدُ سِتَّةَ أَيّامٍ في الأُسْبوعِ، ويَدْرُسُ سَبْعَ حِصَصٍ في اليَوْمِ. 🔊

Ahmad studies six days a week, and seven periods a day. Same number range, same sentence, and the ة is there once and gone once. Full picture in the numbers chapter.

The unit also finishes the ranking words. Page 171 prints all ten, in both genders, and drill 3 pairs them off:

You had 1 to 7 as clock hours from Unit 4. Now you have all ten, and the clock reaches the end of the day: يَبْدَأُ السّاعَةَ الثّامِنَةَ · يَنْتَهي في الثّالِثَةِ عَصْراً 🔊. Add صَباحاً, ظُهْراً or عَصْراً to say which part of the day you mean.

9. The marks finally get their names

You have been reading these since Unit 1 and this course has called them "the -u ending" and "the -a ending" throughout. On its last two pages the book names them, so from here on you can use the real words:

And the doubled ones, the tanwīn, each named for the job it does:

10. Build it yourself

Tap chips right-to-left, say it aloud as you build. The later ones are whole exchanges; build both roles.

11. Quick check

12. Where this came from

Next: the Unit 7 flashcard deck (57 cards, the biggest yet), then speak all three dialogues and both reading passages in the dialogue reader, and read the updated numbers and prepositions chapters, both of which lost a “beyond the book” tag to this unit. Anything unclear? Bring it to your teacher, in class.