HOW THE LANGUAGE WORKS
Nouns Gender
All Arabic nouns have one of two genders – masculine or feminine. Most nouns ending in -a are feminine:
maktaba
library
ahwa
coffee; café
garsona
waitress
Some nouns that do not end in -a are feminine:
bint
omm
girl
shams
mother
sun
floos
money
The names of many countries, cities and parts of the body are feminine:
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Nouns
masr
aswān
rās
rigl
Egypt head
Aswan leg
tanta
Tanta eed
hand
Feminine nouns that do not end in -a and are not obviously feminine are marked (f) in the English-Arabic section of this book. Some masculine nouns end in -a; these are also indicated in the English-Arabic section:
howa
air (m)
All other nouns that do not end in -a or fall into the above categories can be assumed to be masculine. Construct Form
Some rules require the final -a of a feminine noun to be replaced by -it when two nouns are used together. This is known as the construct form: 260