Types of Plural (الجمع)

In Arabic, plural nouns refer to more than three things. There are three types of plural nouns:

جَمْعُ الـمُذَكَّرِ السَّالِـمُThe Sound Masculine Plural

To form the Sound Masculine Plural, add the ending ـــــون to the singular noun.

الـمُدَرِّسُ الـمُدَرِّسُــونَ The teachers (masculine)

الـمُهَندِسُ الـمُهَنْدِسُــونَ The engineers (masculine)

جَمعُ الـمُؤَنَّثِ السَالـمُThe Sound Feminine Plural

To form the Sound Feminine Plural, replace the final ـة with ـــات.

الـمُعَلِّـمَة الـمُعلِّـمَــات The teachers (feminine)

الـطَالِبَة الـطَّالِبَــات The students (feminine)

جَـمْعُ التَـكسِيرِBroken Plurals

Broken Plurals nouns are formed using various patterns.

Broken Plurals noun patterns won't be covered in this lesson due to their complexity and lack of a clear rule. The best way to learn irregular plurals is to memorize the singular and plural forms of each word.

قَـلَـمٌ أَقْـلَامٌ Pens

قِـطٌّ قِطَطٌ Cats

Plural of inanimate nouns

In Arabic, nouns can be classified as animate or inanimate. For instance, "engineer" and "teacher" are animate nouns, while "chair" and "telephone" are inanimate nouns.

Grammaticaly, plural of inanimate nouns perceived as singular feminine nouns

For instance, we cannot say هذا الأقلام or هَؤُلَاءِ الأقلام, because the word الأقلام is grammatically feminine. Instead, we should say هذه الأقلام

هَذِهِ الأَقْلامُ لـِمُحَمَّدٍ These pens belong to Muhammad

تِلْكَ السَّيَـارَاتُ جَـمِيلَــةٌ وسَرِيعَــةٌ Those cars are beautiful and fast