Forms, known as الأوزان in Arabic, are a system for changing the sense or meaning of verbs. All verbs in Arabic have what’s known as a triliteral root. These three roots are plugged into the form to grow new meanings and senses of words. Knowing the forms is useful, because once you know them, verbs conjugate regularly. There are 10 general verb forms. In this article, we’re going to focus on the first four. They are typically written with Roman numerals. To illustrate this, we are going to use خَتَمَ as a meta-example. 

Form I

Form I has three different sub-forms or patterns. They are: 

• فَعَلَ
• فَعِلَ
• فَعُلَ

You can think of Form I as “Semantic Base Camp.” It’s your starting point for everything else. Form I verbs convey the basic, lexical meaning (or core meaning) of the triliteral root. 

Meta-example: خَتَمَ = to seal, to close, to conclude

Form II

Form II has the following form or pattern: 

• فَعَّلَ

It makes the meaning of a root word causative, intensive, and factitive. 

Meta-example: خَتَّمَ = to make something sealed (intensive/causative)

Form III

Form III has the following form or pattern: 

• فَاعَلَ

It conveys the meaning of mutual action, interaction, or an attempt or engagement. 

Meta-example: خاتَمَ = to correspond with/interact in sealing (this is less common semantically)

Form IV

Form IV has the following form or pattern: 

• أَفْعَلَ

It makes a word causative, which is very common, declarative or transitive. 

Meta-example: أَخْتَمَ = to cause to be sealed/to officially seal

What is the difference between Form II and Form IV in Arabic?

Form II is about intensity and repetition while Form IV is about making a subject enter a state.

Generally speaking…

The past tense is in Form I.

You form the present tense by using the third person past tense masculine of the root. 

You form the imperative from the present tense. 

You from the future tense by adding prefixes.