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How to Say What’s Yours in Modern Standard Arabic

Possession in Modern Standard Arabic, the Arabic of news, books, and formal speech, comes with a few forms you won’t hear in everyday dialects, such as لدى and the endings for exactly two people. We drew on thousands of interactive video transcripts on Playaling, from news broadcasts to interviews, to see which ones speakers actually use.

We’ll start with the forms you’ll meet most often.

ي (my)

The simplest way to show possession in Modern Standard Arabic is a short ending on the noun itself.

Let’s take the word كتاب (book) as an example.

Add ي for “my”:

كتابي (my book)

ك means “your,” and its short vowel tells you whether you’re addressing a man or a woman:

كتابُكَ (your book, to a male)

كتابُكِ (your book, to a female)

ه means “his,” and ها means “her”:

كتابُهُ (his book)

كتابُها (her book)

For groups, MSA keeps separate forms for males and females:

كتابُنا (our book)

كتابُكُم (your book, to a group of males or a mixed group)

كتابُكُنَّ (your book, to a group of females)

كتابُهُم (their book, males or mixed)

كتابُهُنَّ (their book, females)

MSA also has forms for exactly two people, كتابُكُما (your book, you two) and كتابُهُما (their book, those two), which spoken dialects have dropped.

When Tariq introduces himself, watch the click on اسمي at the end: you’ll hear the word and see how the ending ي turns “name” into “my name.”

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باب المكتب (the door of the office)

When the owner is a noun rather than a pronoun, MSA simply places the two words side by side. This invisible connection, called الإضافة , does the work of “of” or “‘s” in English:

باب المكتب (The door of the office.)

مكتب الطالب (The student’s desk.)

Notice that the first word never takes ال, while the second word usually does.

لي (mine)

In MSA, لـ with a pronoun ending is the standard way to say “mine,” “yours” and so on:

لي (mine)

لكَ (yours, to a male)

لكِ (yours, to a female)

لهُ (his)

لها (hers)

لنا (ours)

لكم (yours, plural)

لهم (theirs)

لـ can also go straight onto a name or a noun:

الكتاب لأحمد (The book is Ahmed’s.)

In MSA, لـ can also mean “to have,” especially for family and relationships:

لي أخ (I have a brother.)

Here, a speaker uses لي to say he has two sons. Clicking on لي at the end plays the word and shows that here it means “I have,” not “mine.”

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عندي (I have)

For “I have,” MSA most often uses عند , literally “at” or “with,” followed by a pronoun ending:

عندي بيت (I have a house.)

In a question, the vowel of the ending shifts for a man or a woman:

عندَكَ وقت؟ (Do you have time? to a male)

عندَكِ وقت؟ (Do you have time? to a female)

عند works the same way in MSA and in every spoken dialect.

Listen for عند as one man asks another about dates from Medina, then watch the clicks on عندك and عندي to hear each word and see its meaning.

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لديّ (I have, formal)

In news reports, speeches and formal writing, you’ll often hear لدى instead of عند . It takes the same pronoun endings, though its final letter changes to ي:

لديّ سؤال (I have a question.)

لديه خبرة طويلة (He has long experience.)

In everyday conversation, though, عندي is far more natural.

معي (I have it on me)

مع plus a pronoun ending refers to what someone has with them at that moment:

هل معك قلم؟ (Do you have a pen on you?)

ليس معي مال (I don’t have money on me.)

The difference is simple: عندي is about what you own, while معي is about what you’re holding or carrying.

In this Playaling video, a traveler uses مع for everything she has on her. At the end, a click on معي plays the word and shows what it means.

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أملك (I own)

The verb ملك (to own) is used more widely in MSA than in the spoken dialects. Besides property, it can describe owning skills, power or information:

أملك سيارة (I own a car.)

لا نملك معلومات كافية (We don’t have enough information.)

You’ll also see the noun مِلك , which means “property”:

هذا البيت مِلكي (This house is my property.)

Don’t confuse it with مُلك , spelled the same but pronounced differently, which means “reign” or “kingship.”

صاحب (the owner of)

Placed before a noun, صاحب names its owner:

صاحب العمل (The employer, literally “the owner of the work.”)

This Playaling news report uses صاحب to introduce a shop owner in Old Damascus. Watch the end, where the interactive captions bring up the meaning and pronunciation of صاحب and محل: the owner and what he owns.

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