Singular and Plural Nouns in Arabic

Sound and broken plurals explained [click here]

Noun sound plurals are recognized by just that – sound! These nouns have a regular more predictable pattern.

Predictable patterns make noun sound plurals easy to memorize!

For Colloquial/spoken Arabic: Feminine nouns take an “aat” suffix while masculine nouns take a “iin” suffix. It is that simple.

For MSA/Classical Arabic: Feminine nouns take a “aat” suffix while masculine nouns take a "uun" or a "iin" suffix.

The "uun" is for the nominative case.
And the "iin" is for the accusative and genitive case.

Noun broken plurals, however, have the internal structure of the word altered in order to reach the plural form.

Broken plurals need some memorizing because they are less regular…

Listen and repeat [click here]

Listen and repeat...

Note for MSA/Classical Arabic:

Regular feminine plurals have the endings:

"aatun" "اتٌ" for the nominative; "aatin" "اتٍ" for the accusative and the genitive.

Regular masculine plurals have the endings:

"uuna" "ونَ" for the nominative; "iina" "ينَ" for the accusative and the genitive.

The below examples are given in the nominative case since this is the correct choice of mood for listing words.

*An asterik denotes a discrepancy between Colloquial/spoken Arabic and MSA/Classical Arabic.

           Singular                                                   Plural

           Feminine with “aat” ending:

سَيِّدَةٌ
سِتْ
1 sit - lady

سَيِّداتٌ
سِتّاتْ
2 sittaat

كوُبٌ
كوبّايـَةْ
3 kobbaaya - cup

أكْوابٌ*
  كوبّيات
4 kobbayaat

             Masculine ending with “iin” ending:

مُهَنْدِسٌ
مُهَنْدِسْ
11 mohandis - engineer

مُهَنْدِسونَ
مُهَنْدِسـينْ
12 mohandisiin

مُوَظَفٌ
مُوَظَفْ
13 mowazzaf - employee

مُوَظَفونَ
مُوَظَفـِيِنْ
14 mowazzafiin

            Broken plurals:

وَلَد
وَلَدْ
21 walad - boy

أوْلادٌ
وِلادْ
22 wilaad

كِتابٌ
كِتابْ
23 kitaab - book

كُتُبٌ
كُتُبْ
24 kutub

See more examples

Take note [click here]

Take note...

1- Noun broken plurals need more effort to learn than noun sound plurals.

But at least singular broken nouns inherit the same broken plural pattern if they are similar sounding (as seen below in Drill #2 BROKEN PLURALS).

2- Learn the singular noun with its plural form.

[10] one or many? singular and plural nouns