The possessive construction in Arabic is known as الإضافة. In English, the possessive is formed in one of two ways. You could either say, “Michael’s house” or “the house of Michael.” The first one – “Michael’s house” – is more common while the second – “the house of Michael” sounds formal and grand. In Arabic, the possessive is formed by taking two nouns and putting them together in a special way. 

The first noun is called المضاف or “the possessed.” It does not take the definite article (ال) or tanween (also known as the double vowel). Its case ending changes based on its position in the sentence – accusative, genitive, or nominative. This noun comes first in the possessive construction. 

The second noun is called المضاف إليه or “the possessor.” It is always in the genitive case, and it is usually marked with a kasra or a kasratain. It defines المضاف – or the first noun – and always comes second. 

The word “of” is not included in the Arabic construction. That said, if English is your first language, it can be helpful to use that logic to remember which noun comes first and which noun comes second. For instance, in English we can say either, “Mike’s house” or “house of Mike.” In Arabic, you would form الإضافة by writing “بيت مايك”. I haven’t included the case markers at the moment, but in English, this would intuitively be translated to, “house Mike.” The house is the thing that’s being possessed, so it’s المضاف. Mike is the possessor, so it’s المضاف إليه. 

So whenever you’re trying to create the possessive construction in Arabic, and you’re coming at it from an English-speaking perspective, start with the overly formal “blank of blank” construction in English and that will help you get to الإضافة.