Family and classroom vocabulary
Arabic · Key Stage 1 · The School
The family
أَب (ab) father, أُمّ (umm) mother, أَخ (akh) brother, أُخْت (ukht) sister, جَدّ (jadd) grandfather, جَدّة (jadda) grandmother, اِبْن (ibn) son, بِنْت (bint) daughter. You already know some of these from names and phrases you hear — bint and ibn appear in the names of scholars throughout Islamic history.
Around the classroom
كِتاب (kitāb) book, قَلَم (qalam) pen, بَاب (bāb) door, كُرْسِيّ (kursī) chair, مَكْتَب (maktab) desk, مُعَلِّم (muʿallim) teacher. Notice kitāb and maktab share the letters ك ت ب — the root for writing. Root families are the great time-saver in Arabic, and you have just met your first.
Saying "this is"
هٰذا (hādhā) means "this" for masculine words, هٰذِهِ (hādhihi) for feminine. هٰذا كِتاب — this is a book. هٰذِهِ أُخْتي — this is my sister. Arabic has no word for "a" or "is" in these sentences: two words make a complete sentence, which is simpler than English.
The pattern is هٰذا (hādhā, this is — for masculine) and هٰذِهِ (hādhihi — for feminine). هٰذا كِتاب — this is a book. هٰذِهِ مَدْرَسة — this is a school, feminine because of the ة. هٰذا أَبي — this is my father. Note there is no word for 'is' anywhere, and the choice between هٰذا and هٰذِهِ is decided by the noun, not by who is speaking.