English and Arabic/Contrastive grammar

Nouns

Gender

In Arabic, a noun is either masculine or feminine, as there is no neuter, while in English, all nouns are neuter gender. However, there are some words which could be considered either masculine or feminine.

The usual feminine form is the addition of the feminine ending "تاء مَرْبُوطَة", which transliterates to "taa' marbooTa" (tied or attached 't') to masculine nouns and adjectives to make them feminine. For example:

• سيارة → "sayyāra" (car)

• حقيبة → "haqība" (bag)

• خالة → "khāla" (maternal aunt)

All nouns are considered masculine unless they have a feminine ending. There are very few feminine nouns without a feminine ending, which include geographical names and parts of the body that come in pairs as well as a few others.

• عَيْن → "eayan" (eye)
• مصر → "misr" (Egypt)
• شَمْس→ "shams" (sun)