Arabic verb conjugator: past, present and command for Form I verbs

Arabic verbs change with the person, and Form I is the pattern every learner meets first. A Form I verb is built from three root letters. In the past tense the pattern is CaCaC: kataba (كتب, he wrote) is k-t-b with a after the first two letters. 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 free Cubbbix Arabic Verb Conjugator builds the full tables for a Form I verb: past, present and command, for all thirteen persons plus the five command forms. Type a sound three-letter root such as kataba or darasa, or pick a ready-made verb. The tool asks you to pick the present-tense vowel, because that vowel is the one thing the past tense cannot tell you, and guessing it for you would produce wrong tables with a straight face.

Figure 1: Past, present and command for a Form I verb, from any three-letter root.

The present vowel you cannot predict

Knowing kataba tells you the root, but not whether the present is yaktubu, yaktibu or yaktabu. Kataba gives yaktubu. Jalasa gives yajlisu. Fataha gives yaftahu. The vowel is a property of each verb, listed in dictionaries, and it is the single most useful fact for a learner to accept early: do not try to derive it, look it up. Once the vowel is known, the rest of a sound verb follows the table exactly, with no exceptions. That is why the tool asks: pick u, a or i, and the table builds itself.

The command follows from the present stem. Drop the present prefix, and the word starts with two consonants in a row, which Arabic does not allow at the start of a word, so an initial vowel is added, written as alif. The command vowel is u when the present vowel is u (uktub), and i when the present vowel is i or a (ijlis, iftah). The command has only five forms, because commands are given to you: masculine, feminine, dual, masculine plural and feminine plural.

Figure 2: The present vowel is a property of each verb. Look it up, then the table follows.

Hollow and defective verbs

A hollow verb has a weak middle letter: qaala (قال, to say) is q-w-l, and it becomes qultu for I, because the long vowel shortens before a consonant suffix. A defective verb has a weak last letter: da'aa (دعا, to call) is d-ayn-w, and it becomes da'awtu for I, because the weak letter returns as w. Both patterns are regular once you know them, and both are built into the ready-made examples on the tool. Do not apply the sound-verb table to them: a weak root typed as a sound root gives a wrong table, and the tool warns you of exactly that.

What the tool leaves out is stated on the page, not hidden. It does not cover derived forms (Form II kattaba, Form IV aktaba), doubled roots such as madda, or hamza verbs such as akala and saala, which follow their own rules. A tool that claimed those tables from a three-letter root would be guessing, and a learner who trusted the guess would learn the wrong forms. Form I sound verbs plus the two weak patterns cover the ground a beginner actually needs, and the rest belongs in a dictionary.

Figure 3: Qaala shortens its vowel before consonant suffixes. Da'aa brings its w back.

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