Arabic Verb Conjugation, from Kataba to Baktub

Arabic verb conjugation marks person, gender, number, tense and mood on the verb itself. Modern Standard Arabic has 13 person forms; Egyptian and Levantine Arabic have 8, because spoken Arabic dropped the dual and the feminine plural. The tables below give كتب (kataba, to write) in all of them, in all three varieties, side by side.

The full conjugation of كتب (kataba, to write)

كتب (kataba) is a sound Form I verb, and it is where every course teaches Arabic verb conjugation first: three strong root letters, no weak letter to distort the pattern. Learn this one paradigm and you can conjugate several thousand verbs by swapping the root letters. The four tables below give the past, the present, the two extra moods, and the imperative, with the Egyptian and Levantine equivalents in the same rows rather than in a separate chapter.

Rows marked † are the dual and the feminine plural. They are real Modern Standard Arabic, they appear in the Quran and in written news, and you will essentially never hear them spoken in Cairo, Beirut, Amman or Damascus.

Past tense: الماضي (al-māḍī)

Egyptian and Levantine collapse the four dashed rows into the plural forms already in the table: كتبتوا (katabtu) covers you-all whatever their gender, and كتبوا (katabu) covers they. The one Levantine form worth pausing on is the she-form, katbet rather than katabet, because Levantine drops the first stem vowel where Egyptian keeps it.

Present tense: المضارع المرفوع (al-muḏāriʿ al-marfūʿ)

The he-form and the she-form are worth memorizing as a pair. Modern Standard يَكْتُبُ (yaktubu) and تَكْتُبُ (taktubu) differ only in the prefix, and so do Egyptian biyiktib and bitiktib. The same t- prefix also does duty for you m.sg., which is why taktubu is ambiguous out of context and why Arabic speakers add the pronoun when it matters.

Subjunctive and jussive: المنصوب والمجزوم

The subjunctive and the jussive are the same present-tense stem with a different ending. The subjunctive follows particles like أن (an, that), لن (lan, will not) and لكي (li-kay, in order to). The jussive follows لم (lam, did not) and forms the negative command with لا (lā). Neither exists in spoken Arabic: Egyptian and Levantine use one bare form for both, with no ending at all.

Two patterns fall out of that table. The five forms ending in a long vowel are identical in the subjunctive and the jussive, so there are really only eight distinct jussive forms to learn. And the feminine plural تَكْتُبْنَ (taktubna) never changes at all: indicative, subjunctive and jussive are the same word.

Imperative: الأمر (al-amr)

Negative commands are built differently in each variety. Modern Standard puts لا (lā) in front of the jussive: لا تَكْتُبْ (lā taktub, do not write). Egyptian wraps the verb in a two-part negation, ما تكتبش (ma-tiktib-sh). Levantine uses ما تكتب (mā tiktob) with no second half.

How to read these tables

Read each cell as Arabic script first, transliteration second. The Modern Standard column is fully vowelled, which is a deliberate break from the rest of this site: the moods are invisible without the short vowel marks, since يكتب unvowelled could be yaktubu, yaktuba or yaktub. The dialect columns are unvowelled, because that is how Egyptian and Levantine are actually written by the people who write them.

Transliteration follows one scheme throughout: long vowels carry a macron (ā, ī, ū), emphatic consonants carry a dot (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ḥ), ʿ is the letter ayn and ʾ is hamza. No chat numerals anywhere on the page.

The mechanics underneath the table are simpler than 13 rows suggest. The past tense is one stem, katab-, plus a suffix that carries all the person information. The present tense is a prefix plus the stem plus an ending, and there are only four prefixes in the whole language: a- for I, na- for we, ta- for you and for she, ya- for he and for they. Everything else is the ending. Learn the four prefixes and the suffix list and you have two short patterns to carry rather than thirteen separate words.

The dialect rules: the b- prefix and the endings that vanish

Three changes separate the spoken conjugation from the Modern Standard one, and all three are visible in the tables above. Egyptian and Levantine add a b- prefix to mark an ordinary present tense. They drop every mood ending, so one bare form replaces the subjunctive and the jussive. And they drop the dual and the feminine plural entirely, cutting 13 person forms down to 8.

Start with the b-. Egyptian baktib and Levantine baktob mean I write or I am writing. Modern Standard has nothing equivalent: aktubu covers both. Drop the b- and you get the bare form, which is what follows a modal word. In Cairo, عايز أكتب (ʿāyiz aktib) is I want to write. In Damascus, بدي اكتب (biddi iktob) is the same sentence. The b- attaches to the prefix, so it is baktib for I but biyiktib for he, with the vowel between them. Levantine does one thing Egyptian does not: in the we-form the b- turns into m-, giving mniktob rather than a hypothetical bniktob. That single letter is the fastest way to hear which of the two dialects someone is speaking.

The mood endings go next. Modern Standard distinguishes yaktubu, yaktuba and yaktub by a final short vowel. Spoken Arabic pronounces none of them, so the distinction disappears and the particle in front of the verb carries the whole job. The long-vowel endings survive, but shortened: Modern Standard taktubūna becomes bitiktibu with the final -na gone. If you have ever wondered why dialect speakers seem to conjugate less than the grammar book says, this is the answer, and how the main Arabic dialects differ covers the rest of the divergence.

Then the dual and the feminine plural. Five of the 13 Modern Standard rows are dual or feminine plural. In Egyptian and Levantine speech, none of them exists. Two men who wrote something say katabu, exactly like ten men. A group of women say katabu too. Spoken Arabic has worked this way for centuries, so it is not a modern shortcut or a sign of careless speech. The honest caveat: the feminine plural does survive in parts of the Gulf, in Yemen, and in bedouin and rural varieties, so a learner heading to Riyadh should not write it off the way a learner heading to Cairo can. For the Egyptian forms in practical sentences, our page on learning Egyptian Arabic is the next step.

Future tense is a fourth divergence and a smaller one. Modern Standard prefixes sa- or the separate word سوف (sawfa): سَيَكْتُبُ (sa-yaktubu, he will write). Egyptian uses ه or ح attached to the bare form, هيكتب (hayiktib). Levantine uses the separate word رح (raḥ), as in رح يكتب (raḥ yiktob).

Forms I to X: the same root, ten meanings

Arabic builds related verbs out of one three-letter root by pouring it into a fixed set of patterns, numbered I to X. Form I is the plain verb. The other nine add a letter, double a letter or lengthen a vowel, and each pattern carries a recognizable shade of meaning: causative, reciprocal, reflexive, passive. Ten are in common use. Wright's Grammar of the Arabic Language lists Forms XI to XV as well; they are rare enough that you can ignore them until you are reading classical poetry.

Every one of those ten conjugates through the same 13 persons using the same prefixes and suffixes you have already seen. What changes is the stem, not the endings, so Form X أَسْتَخْدِمُ (astakhdimu, I use) is built exactly like أَكْتُبُ (aktubu, I write). That is why one paradigm carries so much: learn kataba properly and the derived forms cost you a stem each, not a table each. If you want the ten forms treated at length, with exercises, that belongs in a book rather than a web page, and the Arabic grammar books we recommend covers which ones do it well.

Where learners go wrong

The most expensive mistake is learning the present tense as a single shape. Form I verbs have an unpredictable middle vowel in the present, and it has to be learned with the verb: كَتَبَ / يَكْتُبُ (kataba / yaktubu) takes u, جَلَسَ / يَجْلِسُ (jalasa / yajlisu, to sit) takes i, and فَتَحَ / يَفْتَحُ (fataḥa / yaftaḥu, to open) takes a. There is no rule. Record the pair when you record the word, or you will conjugate half your vocabulary wrong. This is the one job worth outsourcing to a tool, and an Arabic dictionary that lists the imperfect vowel next to the past-tense form saves you the guesswork.

The reverse mistake is taking the b- prefix into writing. Baktib is Egyptian, not Arabic-in-general. Write it in an exam or an email and it reads the way "gonna" reads in a job application.

Then there is the assumption that كتب covers everything. It is a sound verb, three strong consonants, and many of the verbs a beginner meets first are not: to say, to walk, to arrive. Verbs with w, y or hamza in the root reshape when they conjugate: قَالَ / يَقُولُ (qāla / yaqūlu, to say), مَشَى / يَمْشِي (mashā / yamshī, to walk), وَصَلَ / يَصِلُ (waṣala / yaṣilu, to arrive), where the initial w simply vanishes in the present. The endings on those verbs are the ones in the tables above; only the stem misbehaves.

The one that cost me most was not a grammar error at all. I worked through the verb tables in A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language and learned all 13 persons in every mood, and nothing in that book mentioned that five of the rows would never once come up in a conversation. It is an excellent book and we still recommend it, which is why our review of Haywood and Nahmad is on this site. It is also a Modern Standard book, and if the goal is speaking, learn the dialect column beside the standard one from the first day rather than five years in.

Frequently asked questions

Does Arabic have verb conjugation?

Yes, and more of it than English. An Arabic verb changes for person, gender, number, tense and mood. The past tense marks all of that with suffixes alone. The present tense uses a prefix and a suffix together, so the same stem -ktub- gives aktubu (I write), taktubu (you write) and yaktubu (he writes). There is no separate word for the subject pronoun unless you want to emphasize it.

How many conjugations does an Arabic verb have?

Modern Standard Arabic has 13 person forms in each tense, not the six that European languages train you to expect. The extra five are the dual (two people, addressed or spoken about) and the separate feminine plural for you-all and they. Egyptian and Levantine Arabic use 8, because spoken Arabic dropped the dual and the feminine plural.

What are the 10 verb forms in Arabic?

They are ten patterns that reshape a three-letter root into related meanings, numbered I to X and usually written with Roman numerals. Form I is the plain verb (kataba, to write), Form II doubles the middle letter and often makes it causative, Form III lengthens the first vowel and aims the action at another person, so kataba (to write) becomes kataba with a long first a (to correspond with), Form V and VI are the reflexive versions of II and III, Form VII and VIII turn the verb inward or passive, Form IX covers colors and defects, and Form X often means to seek or consider. Forms XI to XV exist but are rare enough to ignore.

How do you say I write in Egyptian and Levantine Arabic?

Baktib in Egyptian Arabic and baktob in Levantine. Both take the b- prefix that marks an ordinary, habitual present, which Modern Standard Arabic does not have at all. The MSA form aktubu is correct in writing and in a news broadcast, and it will sound like a book if you say it in a cafe. Drop the b- and you get the bare form used after a modal: ayiz aktib (I want to write) in Cairo, biddi iktob in Damascus.

How do you learn Arabic conjugation easily?

Learn one sound verb completely, then learn the prefixes and suffixes as a separate short list rather than as thirteen unrelated words. The past tense is a stem plus one suffix. The present tense is one of four prefixes (a-, na-, ta-, ya-) plus an ending. Once those two patterns are automatic, every regular verb in the language is the same table with a different stem. Weak verbs, the ones with w, y or hamza in the root, are the part that genuinely has to be memorized verb by verb.

Related Arabic grammar references

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

• The suffixes in these tables are pronouns fused onto the verb. For the standalone set and the attached possessive and object forms, see the full Arabic pronoun set, independent and attached.
• Every mood on this page is marked by a short vowel sign rather than a letter, so how the harakat mark these endings is the companion page to this one.
• If the script itself is still slow to read, start with the 28 letters and their positional forms before working through a paradigm.
• Reading Arabic Business and Firm Names: A Reader’s GuideA reader’s guide to parsing Arabic business and law-firm names. Break down the entity word, family name, and service descriptor on any Arabic sign.