The past in Arabic

The perfect or the past (Arabic: الماضي) forms the basic form of the verb in Arabic. In Arabic, there is no distinction between perfect, past tense and pluperfect, as in German. There is only one past tense that can be used to talk about past events. We deliver past tense in Arabic!

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Caution: Without vocalization, the past tense of the personal pronouns هي, أنتَ, أنتِ and أنا look the same. Therefore, the context must be well considered in order to know which pronoun the verb is referring to if it is being paid out, which is allowed in Arabic and is also common because otherwise, it would be like a piece of double information.

Although there is only one tense in Arabic, there are ways of expressing that something happened in the past or in the distant past by putting the verb كان in front of the subject followed by the verb in the indicative. This expresses something that happened in the past for a long time or the construction that “used to” as we say in English.

Incidentally, the past is negated with لم + verb in the apocopate. Briefly explained the apocopate is the imperfect tense with the difference that the last letter has a sukun ( ْ ).

That was The past in Arabic. If you liked the article, then please read the article about the other tenses, the present tense in Arabic.