Arabic Verb Conjugator

Conjugate a Form I Arabic verb in past, present and command, from any three-letter root.

Arabic verbs change with the person, and Form I (the three-letter root form) is the pattern every learner meets first. This tool conjugates a Form I verb in three tenses: the past (الماضي), the present (المضارع), and the command (الأمر). Type a sound three-letter root such as كتب, or pick a ready-made verb. The present-tense vowel is a property of each verb, not something you can work out from the past tense alone, so you pick it: كتب takes u (يكتب), درس takes u (يدرس), جلس takes i (يجلس). Irregular verbs are covered by the ready-made examples: قال for hollow verbs (middle letter weak) and دعا for defective verbs (last letter weak).

Root or verb (past, 3rd person masculine)

Three letters for a sound verb, for example كتب or درس. For قال and دعا, use the ready-made buttons: their patterns are built in.

Present-tense vowel

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Honest limits. This tool covers Form I only: the three-letter root pattern. It does not cover derived forms (Form II كتّب, Form IV أكتب, and so on), doubled roots such as مدّ, or hamza verbs such as أكل and سأل, which follow their own rules. For a sound verb, the table is fully regular. For قال and دعا, the built-in tables are the standard forms, and a custom root typed while one of those is selected is treated as a sound verb, which will be wrong for a weak root. Vowels are not written in the tables: كتبت is read katabtu, and كتبتْ is read katabat, and the tables note the difference in the pronoun column.

How a Form I verb is built

A Form I verb is built from three root letters. In the past tense, the pattern is CaCaC: كتب is k-t-b with a after the first two letters, kataba. The person is marked by a suffix: tu for I, ta for you (masculine), ti for you (feminine), uu for they (masculine), na for they (feminine). In the present tense, a prefix marks the person (a- for I, ta- for you, ya- for he, na- for we) and the stem vowel sits between the second and third root letters: yaktubu, taktubiina, yaktubuuna. The command drops the present prefix and, for most verbs, adds an initial alif: uktub, uktubii, uktubuu.

The present-tense vowel cannot be predicted from the past tense. That is the single most useful fact for a learner: knowing kataba tells you the root, but not whether the present is yaktubu, yaktibu or yaktabu. Dictionaries list it, and this tool asks you to pick it. The three options cover the whole system: u, a and i. Once the vowel is known, the rest of a sound verb follows the table exactly, with no exceptions.

Hollow and defective verbs

A hollow verb has a weak middle letter: قال (q-w-l) becomes qultu for I, because the long vowel shortens before a consonant suffix. A defective verb has a weak last letter: دعا (d-ʿ-w) becomes daʿawtu for I, because the weak letter returns as w. Both patterns are built into the ready-made examples, and both are regular once you know the pattern. Do not apply the sound-verb table to them.

Reading the tables

Each row is one person: I, we, you (masculine, feminine, dual, masculine plural, feminine plural), he, she, they (dual masculine, dual feminine, masculine plural, feminine plural). The dual (two people) is used for exactly two, and the plural for three or more. The command table has only five rows, because commands are given to you: masculine, feminine, dual, masculine plural, feminine plural.

Frequently Asked Questions

The simplest Arabic verb pattern, built from a three-letter root: CaCaC in the past tense, as in kataba (كتب, he wrote). Derived forms add letters to the root (Form II kattaba, Form IV aktaba) and follow different patterns. This tool covers Form I only.

Because it cannot be worked out from the past tense. Kataba gives yaktubu, jalasa gives yajlisu, fataha gives yaftahu. The vowel is a property of each verb, listed in dictionaries, and this tool asks you to choose it rather than guessing it for you.

A hollow verb has a weak middle root letter (w or y), as in qaala (قال, to say): the vowel shortens before consonant suffixes, qultu. A defective verb has a weak last root letter, as in daʿaa (دعا, to call): the weak letter returns as w before consonant suffixes, daʿawtu. Both are built into the ready-made examples.

Because Arabic words cannot start with two consonants in a row. The present stem starts with two consonants (ktub), so the command adds an initial vowel, written as alif: uktub. The command vowel is u when the present vowel is u (uktub), and i when the present vowel is i or a (ijlis, iftah).

No. Doubled roots (the second and third letters are the same, as in madda, مدّ, to stretch) follow their own rules, with the doubled letter splitting before consonant suffixes (madadtu). They are left out rather than guessed.

No. The tables use normal Arabic spelling, which does not write short vowels. The pronoun column tells you who is speaking, and the standard reading follows from the pattern: katabtu for I, katabta for you (masculine), katabat for she.