This and That in Arabic: هَذَا، هَذِهِ، ذَلِكَ، تِلْكَ

Near demonstratives: هَذَا and هَذِهِ

For things close to the speaker, Arabic uses هَذَا (hādhā) with masculine nouns and هَذِهِ (hādhihi) with feminine nouns. A spelling note that puzzles beginners: both words are pronounced with a long ā after the h — hādhā, hādhihi — but that long vowel is written only as a small dagger alif in fully vocalized texts, not as a full letter. The spelling هذا hides a long vowel the script does not show.

Because Arabic needs no verb 'to be' in the present tense, a demonstrative plus an indefinite noun is already a complete sentence: هَذَا كِتَابٌ (hādhā kitābun) means 'This is a book.' This two-word pattern is the doorway to Arabic's nominal sentence, which Fahm's grammar course covers in its A1 track alongside a dedicated lesson on demonstrative pronouns.

Gender agreement is strict and grammatical, not logical. شَمْس (shams, 'sun') is feminine, so 'this sun' needs هَذِهِ; قَمَر (qamar, 'moon') is masculine, so it takes هَذَا. When you are unsure of a noun's gender, the quickest check is the ة ending — most nouns ending in ة are feminine — or a lookup in Fahm's dictionary search.

Far demonstratives: ذَلِكَ and تِلْكَ

For things farther away — physically distant, earlier in the conversation, or abstract — Arabic uses ذَلِكَ (dhālika) for masculine and تِلْكَ (tilka) for feminine. Like هَذَا, the word ذَلِكَ carries a hidden long ā after the dh: dhālika, spelled without a full alif.

The distance can be metaphorical. Writers use ذَلِكَ to refer back to an idea just mentioned — 'that (which I said)' — and set phrases built on it are everywhere in MSA: لِذَلِكَ (lidhālika, 'therefore'), مَعَ ذَلِكَ (maʿa dhālika, 'nevertheless'), كَذَلِكَ (kadhālika, 'likewise'). Learning these three connectors gives your written Arabic an immediate boost.

Readers of the Quran meet ذَلِكَ in its second verse: ذَلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ (dhālika al-kitābu lā rayba fīhi), 'That is the Book about which there is no doubt.' You can explore this verse word by word in Fahm's Quran reader.

The full paradigm: duals and plurals

Arabic has dual demonstratives that, like dual nouns, change with grammatical case. 'These two' is هَذَانِ (hādhāni) for masculine and هَاتَانِ (hātāni) for feminine in the nominative; in the accusative and genitive they become هَذَيْنِ (hādhayni) and هَاتَيْنِ (hātayni). The duals are the only demonstratives that decline — everything else in the system is frozen.

For plurals of people, one form serves both genders at each distance: هَؤُلَاءِ (hāʾulāʾi) for 'these' and أُولَئِكَ (ulāʾika) for 'those'. Both are high-frequency Quranic words — أُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ (ulāʾika humu al-mufliḥūna), 'those are the successful ones', closes the fifth verse of Surat al-Baqara.

The rule that saves you the most effort: non-human plurals take feminine singular demonstratives. 'These books' is هَذِهِ كُتُبٌ, not هَؤُلَاءِ; 'those houses' is تِلْكَ الْبُيُوتُ. Reserve هَؤُلَاءِ and أُولَئِكَ strictly for groups of people.

• Near, masculine singular: هَذَا (hādhā)
• Near, feminine singular (and non-human plurals): هَذِهِ (hādhihi)
• Near, dual: هَذَانِ / هَذَيْنِ (m.), هَاتَانِ / هَاتَيْنِ (f.)
• Near, plural for people: هَؤُلَاءِ (hāʾulāʾi)
• Far, masculine singular: ذَلِكَ (dhālika)
• Far, feminine singular (and non-human plurals): تِلْكَ (tilka)
• Far, plural for people: أُولَئِكَ (ulāʾika)

Demonstrative + definite noun: 'this book' vs 'this is a book'

Here is the contrast that carries the most meaning per harakat in this whole topic. A demonstrative followed by an indefinite noun forms a complete sentence: هَذَا كِتَابٌ, 'This is a book.' A demonstrative followed by a definite noun (with الْـ) forms a phrase, not a sentence: هَذَا الْكِتَابُ, 'this book' — and it now needs a predicate to say something: هَذَا الْكِتَابُ مُفِيدٌ, 'This book is useful.'

The definite article is doing real syntactic work here; the fix for the classic beginner misreadings is simply to check the noun for الْـ before translating.

One special case: when the noun after the demonstrative is definite by being the first term of an idafa or carrying a possessive suffix rather than by الْـ, the demonstrative typically follows the whole phrase instead: كِتَابِي هَذَا (kitābī hādhā), 'this book of mine'. You will meet this order in more formal writing.

How to practice the system

Demonstratives are best learned by pointing, not by memorizing tables. Narrate your surroundings in two-word sentences — هَذَا بَابٌ, هَذِهِ نَافِذَةٌ — then upgrade each to a phrase with a predicate: هَذَا الْبَابُ مَفْتُوحٌ. Fahm's stories and lessons recycle هَذَا, هَذِهِ, ذَلِكَ, and تِلْكَ from the very first levels, and the A1 grammar lesson on demonstrative pronouns drills exactly the sentence-versus-phrase contrast above.

When a demonstrative confuses you in a real text, check the noun after it: gender, number, whether it is human, and whether it carries الْـ. Those four checks resolve virtually every case.

Frequently asked questions

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