The word for “refuse, reject” is رَفَضَ (rafada).

Examples of how this word can be used:

* OPEC refused to increase production. - رفض الأوبيك زيادة الانتاج [here زيادة (zayada) means “increased”, as an adjective; أنتج (antaja) means “to produce]

Conjugated in the perfect (”past”) tense:

The word for “get, attain, occur” is حَصَلَ (hasala).

Examples of how this word can be used:

* I received a degree from Harvard University in 2004. - حصلتُ شهادة من جامعة هارفارد في سنة 2004

* He got the most number of votes in the election. - حصل معظم الاصوات الانتخابات

Conjugated in the perfect (”past”) tense:

Many sentences in Arabic, written in the present tense, do not require the verb “to be” (e.g. “is”, “are”, “am”). Nominal sentences in the present tense do not use the “to be” verb, such as ٌٌُُالسماءُ أزرقٌ (al-samaa’u azraqun) - “The sky is blue”.

For the past and future tense, Arabic has the verb كانَ (kana) (”to be”).

• كنتُ طالب - I was a student. (comparable to أنا طالب - I am a student)
• كُنّا نسكن في مصر - We used to live in Egypt.

In the future tense:

• سَأكونُ في لندن يوم الاثنين - I will be in London on Monday.

There are a few situations where present tense sentences need to use كانَ.

Conjugation

As with other verbs in Arabic, كانَ is conjugated.

The verb “translate” is ترجم (tarjama) in Arabic.

From this verb, a number of different nouns can be derived including “translator”. The word for “translator” (male, singular) is مترجم (mutarjim) and for “translator (female, singular) is مترجمة (mutarjima). The plural, masculine form of the word is مترجمون (mutarjimun) or in some grammatical situations, it is مترجمين (mutarjimin). The feminine, plural form (”translators”) is مترجمات (mutarjimat).

Another noun derived from the verb is “translation”. The singular form of the word is ترجمة (tarjima) and the plural is ترجمات (tarjimat).

The BBC Xtra English program for March 26, 2007 was about translators or more specifically about subtitlers (people who write subtitles for films). They talk about how skill and quality is important for the job, and how lack of quality has led to some “bad translations”. They use the word ركيكة (rakika) to describe these as “weak, meager, poor quality, feeble” - ترجمة ركيكة (tarjima rakika).

The entire clip can be heard on the BBC Xtra English website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/elt/newsid_6495000/6495143.stm

The word “ask” is سأل (sa’ala).

Conjugated in the perfect (”past”) tense:

سَألت عن الاطفال - She asked about the children.

In Arabic, the word “search” is بحث (bahatha). You will see this word when on the computer and when using one of Google’s Arabic language sites.

Conjugated in the perfect (”past”) tense:

بَحَثَ في الخِزانة - He searched in the closet.

وَضَعَ (wada’a) - to put or set, lay (he put)
Here is the “past” or perfect tense conjugation for other pronouns, which involves attaching a suffix to the word root.

Use of وَضَعَ in a sentence:
وَضَعَ محمد الكِتاب على الطاولة - Mohamed put the book on the table.
وَضَعْتُ الصَندوق في الخِزانة - I put the box in the closet.
وَضَعْتْ سُكَر في الشاي - She put sugar in the tea.

To become proficient for reading newspapers and magazines, one needs to learn 3000-4000 words, and more for reading fiction or general conversation. (source: The Art and Science of Learning Languages - by Amorey Gethin) Many of the key words to learn are verbs, which are used repeatedly. In the last post, verbs were introduced along with the concept of conjugating them. It would help to learn one (or more) new verbs each day.

I already know some verbs, including these below, and will be posting new verbs regularly.

As is customary in Arabic, these verbs are given in the 3rd person, masculine past tense, which is how the verbs are listed in the dictionary.

Most verbs in Arabic are built around a trilateral root, consisting of three consonants. For example, the word دَخَلَ (dakhala) which means “to enter”. The root of the word is د + خ + ل . The consonants will remain the same, no matter what tense the verb is in. As in Spanish, verbs in Arabic are conjugated (change form, depending on pronoun). In the “present” tense, it works like this, with use of a prefix (ت - “ta” , ي - ya, or ن - na) along with modifying the vowel pattern. The root consonants remain the same. The following example is in the “past” or perfect tense, with a suffix attached to the root.
He entered - دَخَلَ (dakhala)
She entered - دَخَلَتْ (dakhalat)
You (m. sing.) entered - دَخَلَتَ (dakhalata)
You (f. sing.) entered - دَخَلَتِ (dakhalati)
I entered - دَخَلَتُ (dakhalatu)
They (dual m. - 3rd person) - دَخَلا (dakhala)
They (dual f. - 3rd person) - دَخَلَتَا (dakhalata)
You (dual 2nd person) entered - دَخَلْتُمَا (dakhaltuma)
They (m. pl) entered - دَخَلُوا (dakhalua)
They (f. pl) entered - دَخَلْنَ (dakhalna)
You (m. pl) entered - دَخَلْتُمْ (dakhaltum)
You (f. pl) entered - دَخَلْتُنَّ (dakhaltunna)
We entered - دَخَلْنَا (dakhalna)

Arabic does not have an exact equivalent of the “present” and “past” tense, as used in English. Instead, it has the “perfect” and “imperfect” tenses. Perfect tense is used to describe actions that have been completed, such as “he ate” but not “he was eating” which is imperfect (incomplete action in the past or present). The above example is the perfect tense, describing completed actions in the past. The above is also in the “active” voice (”he entered”), rather than “passive” which would be “he had entered”.

When looking up words in the dictionary, verbs are given in the male singular third person (”He”), in the perfect tense. For example, you would find “to enter” listed as دَخَلَ (dakhala).

My Arabic course has started up again, now taking EMSA IV (it’s broken into five courses, to complete EMSA). We are studying from the Ahlan Wa Sahlan textbook. In my class today, we learned some vocabulary to use to describe one’s activities for the day or one’s daily routine.
The day starts in the morning with activities including: اِسْتَحَمَّ (istaham) - to bathe or showers and غَسَلَ (ghasala) - wash. One would also فُرْشاة (fursha’) - to brush; أسْنان (asnan) - teeth or سِنٌْ (sinu) - tooth.
To help remember some of these words, I found this video. Other words here include فم (fam) - mouth; يزيل (yezil), which is derived from زول which means to vanish, disappear, etc.