msa-ca

46 | From MSA to CA: A Beginner’s guide for transitioning into Colloquial Arabic Chapter 3 Contents: A: Transitioning to CA: Verb tenses B: Dialogues: At the sports club (present tense) 1. Missing a lecture at the university (future tense) 2. What did you do yesterday? (past tense) 3. Practice: Complete the dialogue C: Cultural insight: Phone conversations and communicating with different age groups in the Arab world A: Transitioning to CA: Verb tenses In MSA, there are additions, known as prefixes and suffixes, added to the root when the verb is conjugated in the present tense. These remain largely the same in CA, but in some dialects (ECA, LCA), َِ ب is added at the beginning of the verb to indicate habitual action. For example: MSA: التُفَا ُِ آكُل َِ ح ِ ِ الصَبَاح ِ في CA : ِْ الصَباح ِ في ِْ التُفاح ِ بَآكُل ِ