Marhaba! Right now, I want to talk a little bit about
sentences in Arabic, and the ways in which verbs are used in the past and present tense. By this point
I'm assuming that you are familiar with the verb كان, which is
used to kind of situate things and actions in the past tense, and that you know how to conjugate
past tense verbs
with little difficulty. If you need refreshers on those, you can go watch some videos on those subjects.
I want to talk more specifically about the difference in flavor that we get when we use a conjugated past tense verb, or
a
present tense verb
preceded by
كان, because they do have different meanings. If I use a conjugated past tense verb, it has the implication of
doing something once, or doing something for a short
period of time. If I said
قرأتُ الكتب
it would mean 'I read the books.' And as in English,
the idea would be: I did it. I did it once, or I did it quickly, and it's over and done. If I use كان,
conjugated, it gives a slightly different flavor, of
something happening continuously in the past, or something that I 'used to do' in the past,
habitually. If I said كنتُ أقرأ الكتب, it would mean something like 'I used to read books,' or 'I
was reading the books,' and then
potentially we could have a
sudden event or interaction. 'I was reading the books when
my friend walked through the door,' or something like that. But either way, it's a continuous action that was happening in the past. Another example:
لعبتُ كرة القدم.
'I played soccer,' or 'I played football,'
if I say that it implies
once, or really briefly, or just this afternoon, a limited period of time.
But if I say كنتُ ألعب كرة القدم,
it would mean either 'I was playing
soccer,' or 'I used to play soccer.'
في طفولتي، كنت ألعب كرة القدم.
'In my childhood I used to...' do something.
One other little wrinkle that I want to draw your attention to is that sometimes,
not just with كان, but with other verbs,
especially in
narrative
texts taking place in the past, or
biographies, in particular, if
we begin
a
statement with a past tense verb, then we can also switch to
the present tense, while retaining
the meaning of the past tense. Here is an example sentence:
هاجرت المرأة من بلدها، تقيم في الشقق الصغيرة وتعمل في المطاعم.
So, 'the woman
emigrated from her country,'
تقيم في الشقق الصغيرة
literally, that means
'she lives in small apartments,' وتعمل في المطاعم, 'and works in restaurants,' but since it's connected,
immediately preceded by this past tense verb,
it all collectively has a meaning of happening in the past. 'She emigrated from her country,' we might render it in English,
'living in small apartments and working in restaurants.'
Presumably in the new country this is actually a structure in Arabic called حال.
It's one way of phrasing a حال clause.
The important thing right now is that you recognize it, and
recognize that if we see
sort of two clearly connected statements,
and we start with a verb in the past tense, and then the verbs that follow it are in the present tense, the
meaning
remains
sort of
cumulatively in the past.
There will be a separate video on the حال clause, and the different ways that you construct it, because there are a few,
but this is one that we're really likely to encounter in past-tense narratives,
biographies, histories, things like that, so when you are reading texts make sure that you bear that in mind.