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Arabic gender and plurals
Masculine and feminine nouns, taa marbuta, sound plurals and broken plurals in Arabic, with clear examples.
Short answer
Every Arabic noun is masculine or feminine; most feminine nouns end in ة (taa marbuta). Plurals come in two kinds: regular 'sound' plurals with endings (-uun/-iin, -aat) and irregular 'broken' plurals that change the word's inner vowels, such as kitab → kutub (books).
Gender
Talib (male student), taliba (female student). Some feminine nouns have no ة, like shams (sun) and umm (mother). Verbs and adjectives agree with gender.
Sound plurals
Mu'allim → mu'allimun (teachers, masculine); mu'allima → mu'allimat (teachers, feminine).
Broken plurals
Walad → awlad (children), bayt → buyut (houses), kitab → kutub (books). They follow patterns that become familiar with practice; learn each plural with its singular.
Non-human plurals
In MSA, plurals of non-human things take feminine singular agreement: al-kutub jadida (the books are new). Darija simplifies many of these rules.
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