Hi! Do you have any good resources to learn/practice masdar? It can be a book, a list, a place to practice... I'm having a hard time learning the irregular ones by heart and I'm never able to find them when I need to use one :(
Hello, dear.
I’m sorry this took long, I was intending on making a short summary but I eneded up -accidentally- making a lesson about Masdar.
The level of the information on this lesson is : advanced
What is a masdar?
As you know, there isn’t an infinitive form for the verbs in Arabic, the equivalent is Masdar, i.e. a noun that has the meaning of the action but without the indication of a certain tense (unlike the verb which has an action + tense).
Masdar for form I
The patterns for forms II – X are all relatively easy, but the pattern for Form I فَعَلَ (and its variations فَعُلَ and فَعِلَ) is a bit tricky since there are several options, and I’ll try to sum them up in this list:
According to M. Algalaeeni, the possible masdar patterns for triconsonotal roots (roots of verbs that have three letters) are:
The masdar for all the other forms (II to X)
It might be helpful if you use the verb patterns to find the masdar for the remaining patterns, I’ll sum this up in the table and include a few examples for each Masdar.
Some tips :
It’s a good idea to memorize examples instead of just the pattern which might become overwhelming since there are too many of them, and keep on revising them.
I included all the patterns to help you see the logic behind the masdars, but you could use the information to sort and categorize similar words so that you could memorize them faster.
And if you come across any masdar when you’re reading a book or if you’re listening to something in Arabic, I recommend noting it down and seeing where it falls in that list for practice.
As for exceptions/irregular masdars maybe you were referring to verbs that have the vowel (alif)ا in them? In that case you need to return the alif to its original form (either و or ي then follow the patterns).
Books
As for books, I have this post with textbook recommendations by @wonderful-language-sounds. Maybe someone could recommend any helpful books that have lessons about masdar?
Edit :I prepared a few exercices based on this lesson to help you practice the Masdar, you can find the document here.
I hope this was helpful, let me know if you have any doubts.
