past tense

The present tense adds prefixes to the front of the root, and also adds a suffix for you/feminine, you plural and they.  The future tense is formed by adding the prefix Ha to the present tense forms.  And, the past tense is formed by adding suffixes to the root form of the verb except for the third person singular (he) which uses the root alone.

Hope this helps.

There are some notes about the tenses in Arabic language:

1. You should know the form of verbs in Arabic.
2. You should be aware of the “Pronouns” so you can use the suitable prefixes and suffixes.
3. You should know that there is a difference between the standard Arabic language and the Egyptian language (Slang); because the rules are more clear and stable in the standard Arabic than the slang language.
4. Finally you can use the verb in the appropriate form according to the pronoun.

Pronouns:

I : “Ana” – أنا

You:  “Enta” for male – إنت

        “Enti” for female – إنتي

        “Ento” or "Intu" for plural – إنتوا

He: “Howa” – هو

She: “Heya” – هي

They: “Homma” – هما

We: “E7na” – إحنا

Prefixes and Suffixes:

Past Tense:

Generally, we add suffixes to the verb in the past form in Arabic language. For example: Verb "أكل" which means “eat”, we add the following suffixes according to the pronoun:

• We add “t” with “I” and “You” (male)        أنا أكلت - إنت أكلت
• Add “ti” with “You” (Female)       إنتي أكلتي
• Add “tu” with “You” (Plural)         إنتو أكلتو
• Add nothing with “He”              هو أكل
• Add “et” with “She”          هي أكلِت
• Add “na” with “We”            إحنا أكلنا

Prefixes and Suffixes:

Present Tense

In general, we add some prefixes and suffixes to the verb in the present form in Arabic language. For example: Verb "يلعب" (yil3ab) which means “play”, we add the following prefixes and suffixes according to the pronoun:

• With “I” (Ana) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “ba”
  Ana bal3ab – أنا بلعب
• With “You” (Enta - Male) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bit”
  Enta bitl3ab – إنت بتلعب
• With “You” (Enti - Female) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bit” as well and also add the “i” at the end.
  Enti bitl3abi – إنتي بتلعبي
• With “You” (Intu - Plural) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bit” as well and also add the “u” at the end.
  Intu bitl3abu – إنتوا بتلعبوا
• With “We” (E7na) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bin”
  E7na binl3ab – إحنا بنلعب
• With “they” (Huma) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bi” as well and also add the “u” at the end.
  Huma bil3abu – هما بيلعبوا
• With “He” (Howa) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bi”
  Howa bil3ab – هو بيلعب
• With “She” (Heya) we delete “yi” (yil3ab) and then add “bit” (the same case with “You-Male”)
  Heya bitl3ab – هي بتلعب

Notes about Arabic language:

• There are many obvious rules in the standard Arabic Language (as I mentioned before in a previous post). I think that it will be useful if we know some of them.
• There are 15411 regular verbs in which the 3 main forms of the verb (Past, Present and Command) are extracted.

                كَتَبَ - يَكْتُبُ – اُكْتُبْ = to write > Past, Present and Command.

• 6500 - 7000 verbs are only used nowadays.
• There are 43 irregular verbs in which one or 2 forms only are extracted.
• Regular verbs are classified into 4 groups
• Once we know the verb related to which group, it will be easy to know the forms of verb (Past – Present – Command)
• This basic information may help us to deal with Egyptian language (Slang)