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Grammar: The definite article
One of the things many should have noticed before embarking on learning the
Arabic language, is the frequent use of prefixes like "Al" or "El". "Al" and
"El" are the same two letters "a" and "l" put together, which indicate the
definite article for a noun. But what is considered definite and what is not, is
often different from many Western languages. Briefly one could make this as a
rule: If it is not particularly important to stress the indefinite form, the
definite article should be used. But this is only a valid rule at your present
stage in learning Arabic.
When a noun is indefinite, no
prefixes or suffixes are added, you simply use the core form of the noun.
Just to complicate things a bit here: In Arabic there are a group of "sun
letters", letters which standing first in a noun, eat the "l" of the
definite article. These are the following letters:
t, th, d,
dh, r, z, s, sh, S, D, T, Z, n.
The result is that you never write it in English transcription nor pronounce
the l: "al-t.....", "al-th....", "al-d....", "al-dh....", "al-r....",
"al-z....", "al-s....", "al-sh...." and so on.
What you do write and pronounces : "at-t....", "ath-th....", "ad-d....", "adh-dh....",
"ar-r....", "az-z....", "as-s....", "ash-sha....." and so on. However, when
you write it in Arabic, the letter "l" is written, but that is for later
lessons.
For the remainder of the letters, you leave the "l" of the definite article
intact.
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