Pronouns

From Al-Duroos

In English, there are just a few pronouns:

• I - first person (singular)
• We - first person (plural)
• You - second person (singular and plural)
• He - third person (singular, male)
• She - third person (singular, female)
• It - third person (singular, no gender)
• They - third person (plural)

Arabic is a bit different than this, with different pronouns depending on gender as well as number.

Contents 1 Gender 2 Number 3 The Pronouns 4 Word order

Gender

Like Spanish, there is no equivalent of “it”. Instead, all objects or nouns are assigned a gender.

For example, الجريدة (al jareeda) - the newspaper, is a feminine noun. It ends in a ta’ marbuta, which is an indication that the noun is feminine. On the other hand, the word الحاسوب (al haasuub) computer, is a masculine noun. In Arabic, you would refer to the computer with the pronoun “he” and the newspaper is “she”.

Gender is also important for the “you” and the “they” pronouns. Arabic has one word for “you”, talking to a female and a different word for referring to a male. Same, for a group of men (or masculine objects) or females (or feminine objects).

Number

There are also different pronouns for “you”, depending on the number of people or objects you are referring to. In Spanish, there are different pronouns for you (singular), you (plural, masculine), and you (plural, feminine). In Arabic, there are different pronounce for you (singular, masculine), you (singular, feminine), you (dual), you (plural, masculine), and you (plural, feminine). The use of dual pronouns is something more unusual for Arabic, compared to other languages. The third person pronouns also vary in the same way, according to gender and number. There is he, she, they (dual), they (masculine, plural), they (feminine, plural).

The Pronouns

First person
أنا (ana)	نَحنُ (nahnu)

Second person	Third person
أنتَ (anta)	هُوَِ (huwa)
أنتِ (anti)	هِيَ (hiya)
أنتُما (antuma)	هُما (huma)
أنتُم (antum)	هُم (hum)
أنتُنََّ (antuna)	هُنََّ (huna)

Word order

When you write something like "my brother and I" in Arabic, the word order is reversed with the pronoun before "my brother". Thus, it would be: أنا و أخي (ana wa akhi).