The Complete Arabic Pronoun Chart

Arabic has 12 personal pronouns, and each one appears in three forms: an independent word like أنا (anā, I), a possessive suffix like ـي (-ī, my), and an object suffix like ـني (-nī, me). The chart below gives all three columns for Modern Standard, Egyptian and Levantine Arabic.

The complete chart of Arabic pronouns

Arabic pronouns come in two kinds: independent words that stand on their own, and attached suffixes glued to the end of another word. All 12 persons have a form in both kinds, and the attached set splits again by job, into possessive and object. That is three forms per person, and the chart below is all three side by side. Read a row across and you get the free-standing subject word, the suffix that means "my / your / his" on a noun, and the suffix that means "me / you / him" on a verb or a preposition. Plenty of lists give the independent column and stop there, which is why a learner recognises هو (huwa) and then cannot parse كتابه (kitābuhu).

Compare the last two suffix columns and you will see the point of the chart: they are identical except in the first row. The possessive is ـي (-ī) and the object is ـني (-nī). One extra n, one row, and that is the whole difference between the two sets. Learn the possessive column and you have already learned the object column.

Arabic pronouns in Egyptian and Levantine

The spoken dialects use eight pronouns, not twelve. The dual and the feminine plural are gone, so أنتما, هما, أنتنّ and هنّ have no everyday equivalent and a mixed or all-female group takes the masculine plural instead. The vowels move as well, and this is where a learner who studied only Modern Standard stops recognising words they know.

One regional note on the last row. هنّي (hinne) is what you hear in Damascus and Beirut; much of Palestine and Jordan says همّي or هم (humme) instead. Both are Levantine and neither is a mistake. Our page on Levantine Arabic covers the sub-regional splits in more detail, and our Egyptian Arabic page does the same for Cairo.

The Levantine third-person forms are the ones that catch people out. The h disappears: كتابه is read ktābo, not ktābuhu, and كتابها is ktāba with nothing but a long vowel to mark it. The spelling is the same as Modern Standard; only the reading changes.

Arabic possessive pronouns on a real noun

A bare suffix list hides the part that actually trips learners: the vowel in front of the suffix moves with the case. Below is one ordinary noun, كتاب (kitāb, book), carried through the whole paradigm in the nominative, with the genitive alongside so the shift is visible. This is the shape the word takes in a real sentence.

Two things fall out of that table. The first row never changes, because ـي (-ī) swallows the case vowel: kitābī is kitābī in all three cases. Every other row moves. And a noun carrying a suffix is already definite, so you never put الـ (al-) in front of it. There is no al-kitābī; كتابي already means the book that is mine.

How to read these charts

Read each row left to right: script first, then transliteration, then meaning. Long vowels carry a macron (ā, ī, ū), the emphatic consonants carry a dot (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ḥ), ʿ is the letter ayn and ʾ is hamza. The same scheme runs through the dialect rows, so eḥna has a real ح in it and howwa has a doubled w that you are meant to hold.

The Arabic in the charts is written with the case and mood marks on, because a pronoun chart without them tells you nothing. Real text almost never carries them, so أنتَ and أنتِ are both spelled أنت on a page, and only the sentence tells you which one is meant. If those marks are new, start with the harakat that mark these suffixes.

These charts cover the personal pronouns. The demonstratives هذا (hādhā, this, masculine) and هذه (hādhihi, this, feminine) are a separate set that agrees with the thing being pointed at rather than with the speaker, and they are not on this page.

The suffixes attach to three kinds of word and mean something slightly different on each. On a noun they mean possession. On a preposition they mean the object of that preposition, so معه (maʿahu) is "with him". On a verb they mean the direct object. The verb half of the story sits on our page for the full conjugation grid for a sound verb, since the endings that mark the subject on a verb are a separate set from the suffixes here.

The suffixes that change shape

Two suffixes are not fixed, and most pronoun lists skip both. The third-person suffixes beginning with hu switch to hi after an i sound, and the first-person ـي turns into -ya after a long vowel.

Take the third person first. After a kasra, or after the letter ي, the vowel u in ـه, ـهم, ـهما and ـهنّ becomes i:

Now the first person. When ـي lands after a long vowel it fuses and doubles: إلى (ilā) plus -ī gives إليّ (ilayya, to me), على (ʿalā) gives عليّ (ʿalayya, on me), and في (fī) gives فيّ (fiyya, in me). The same happens on sound masculine plurals: معلمون (muʿallimūn, teachers) becomes معلميّ (muʿallimiyya, my teachers). Nobody says ilā-ī.

What you will read but never hear

Four of the twelve forms belong to writing, not to speech. The dual pair أنتما (antumā) and هما (humā), and the feminine plurals أنتنّ (antunna) and هنّ (hunna), turn up constantly in the Quran and in formal news writing. In a conversation in Cairo or Beirut you will wait a long time to hear one. We would learn to recognise all four and put producing them somewhere near the bottom of the list, well behind the eight you will use every day.

The feminine plural has one live exception worth knowing: it survives in parts of the Gulf and in some rural Levantine speech, where a group of women really does get هنّ. Everywhere else the masculine plural covers everybody.

The other trap is gender. Unvocalised text spells ـكَ and ـكِ identically, so learners start treating them as one suffix. Say -ak to a woman in Cairo and it lands wrong every time. A related habit is reaching for an independent pronoun where Arabic wants a suffix. "I saw him" is رأيته (raʾaytuhu), one word, not raʾaytu huwa. If you want a stock of correct sentences to check yourself against, our list of everyday Arabic phrases in Modern Standard, Levantine and Egyptian shows the suffixes in use.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 12 pronouns in Arabic?

They are ana (I), nahnu (we), anta (you, to a man), anti (you, to a woman), antuma (you two), antum (you, to a group of men), antunna (you, to a group of women), huwa (he), hiya (she), huma (those two), hum (they, men) and hunna (they, women). Egyptian and Levantine Arabic drop the dual and the feminine plural, which leaves eight.

What is the difference between attached and independent pronouns in Arabic?

An independent pronoun is a separate word and works as the subject of a sentence: huwa mudarris, he is a teacher. An attached pronoun is a suffix glued to the end of another word. On a noun it means possession, so kitab plus -hu gives kitabuhu, his book. On a verb or a preposition it is the object, so shakara plus -hu gives shakarahu, he thanked him. The suffix set is the same in both jobs, with one exception: my is -i on a noun and -ni on a verb.

How do you say your in Arabic to a man and to a woman?

The suffix -ka for a man and -ki for a woman. The consonant is identical and only the vowel changes, so kitabuka is a man's book and kitabuki is a woman's. In Egyptian and Levantine speech the same pair becomes kitabak and kitabik. Unvocalised writing spells both the same way, which is why the sentence has to tell you who is being addressed.

Why does the suffix -hu sometimes become -hi?

Because a preceding i sound pulls it. After a kasra or after the letter ya, the u in -hu, -hum, -huma and -hunna turns into an i. So his house is baytuhu on its own but fi baytihi, in his house, after the preposition fi. The same rule gives ilayhi (to him) and alayhim (on them). The spelling of the word does not change, only the vowel you say.

When do you use hadha and hadhihi?

Those are demonstratives, not personal pronouns, and they split by the gender of the thing pointed at rather than the person speaking. Hadha is used for a masculine singular noun and hadhihi for a feminine singular noun, both meaning this. For that, further away, the pair is dhalika and tilka. The charts on this page cover the personal pronouns instead.

Related Arabic grammar references

This chart is one of a set we keep for looking things up rather than reading through:

• The full conjugation grid for a sound verb, which covers the subject endings that this page does not
• The harakat that mark these suffixes, with every mark shown on the same host letter
• Arabic kinship terms, which almost always carry a possessive suffix in real speech
• The Arabic alphabet from alif to ya, if the script itself is still slowing you down
• Arabic grammar books worth buying, if you want the full pronoun paradigms on paper