Describing people and things
Arabic · Key Stage 2 · The School
Six useful adjectives
كَبير big. صَغير small. جَديد new. قَديم old. سَعيد happy. حَزين sad. Each has a matching feminine form, usually made by adding ة at the end: kabīr becomes kabīra.
After the noun, not before
بَيْت كَبير — a big house, word for word 'house big'. وَلَد سَعيد — a happy boy. The adjective always follows. Writing كَبير بَيْت instead is grammatically wrong, even though it feels natural to an English speaker's instinct.
Matching gender
A feminine noun needs the feminine adjective: سَيّارة كَبيرة, a big car, not سَيّارة كَبير. Mismatching gender is a common and noticeable error — as noticeable to an Arabic speaker as 'a bigs house' would sound in English.
Building a full description
الوَلَدُ الصَّغيرُ سَعيدٌ — the small boy is happy. Two adjectives at once: صَغير describes وَلَد directly, agreeing and coming right after it; سَعيد stands alone as the whole sentence's point, with no verb needed at all — a nominal sentence, like you met before. Try describing a person you know using two adjectives. Then try a third adjective from this lesson, added to the same sentence.