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Fi’l Mudaari’: Present and Future Tense
By ArabicTree | September 2, 2008
In Arabic, fi’l al-mudaari’ (the present/future-tense verb) can represent either the present or the future tense verb. So the question arises: how do you know if it’s being used in a present or future tense?
For example, if someone says to you:
Does this mean “I am drinking tea” or “I will drink tea”? If you can see the person, no problem!–you can tell if they’re drinking tea or not right now. But what if you read a sentence like this in a book?
The answer is context; the same way Arabs (meaning people who speak and understand Arabic) understand without vowels, they understand tense by context. Subhanallah! What about the rest of us?
As it turns out, you can explicitly specify that the verb is present- or future-tense. Let’s go by example. Our original sentence was:
If we want to make it present-tense, we say:
The addition of al-aana (الانَ) means “now”; so you can translate this sentence as: “I am drinking tea right now.” Which makes it present-tense! Notice you could NOT say “I will drink tea right now”–it doesn’t make sense! So al-aana removes the ambiguity and makes it present-tense.
What about future tense? There are two ways you can achieve this:
- By the addition of the letter seen:
سَأَشرُبُ الشَايَ
The addition of seen makes it future tense; so you can translate as “I will drink tea.”
- By the addition of the word sawfa:
سَوفَ أَشرُبُ الشَايَ
The addition of sawfa makes it future tense; so you can translate as “I will drink tea.”
Both are equivalent, seen and sawfa–there’s no difference in the meaning. Also, unlike al-aana, you do not explicitly translate the seen or sawfa into a word (at least, in English).
To summarize: Mudaari’ verbs can be present-tense or future tense; you can explicitly specify it as present-tense (by adding al-aana) or future-tense (by adding seen or sawfa).
Wallahu ‘alim.
Topics: Grammar, Intermediate | 7 Comments »
September 4th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
A very useful post and very well constructed, Masha Allah.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I think FI’IL mudhori’ can be either for present and future. The arabic tense is actually depend much on the context not the form. For intance:
بارك الله فيك
This means May Allah bless you, eventhough the verb is fi’il madhi but in this context the meaning is future, another example is:
رحمه الله و May Allah love him, this also means that allah love him next, even the fi’il is madhi(perfect). sO IN aRABIC THE TENSE IS DEPENT ON CONTECT. WASSALAM
July 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am
how to express continious tenses of english in arabic?
August 4th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
The correct vowelisation is أَشْرَبُ, i.e. with a fat7ah on the raa.
Also, هذا is not written with an alif after the haa (this is from another post). There are several other mistakes in the other posts.
Also, Allah Knows best = والله أعلم
not والله عالم, so is probably better transliterated as “wallahu a’lam”
Although I appreciate your effort, and I don’t mean to discourage you, I think it is important for us to learn things properly ourselves before we can teach them to others (especially since learning Arabic is a step towards understanding the deen through its original sources). In the very least, you should consider getting your writing checked before posting it.
Sorry for pointing these things out in a comment (I don’t if it is moderated first or published directly), but I couldn’t find an e-mail address to mail you. I don’t mind if you delete this comment after you read it, but please do make an effort to fix the mistakes.
بارك الله فيك
August 27th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
@Supardi, that’s true; tihs is just a simple way of forcing the sentence to be one form or the other.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
@Naeem, not sure what you mean by continuous; maybe “he is running”?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
@AK, jazakumullahu khayran. I usually make typographical mistakes with my posts more than actual mistakes. As to haadhaa, it’s pronounced with an alif after the haa–but this is deleted and it’s usually written as a small alif. Wallahu ‘alam.