/arabic-writing

name: arabic-writing
description: >-
  Write and translate natural, grammatically correct Arabic — Modern Standard Arabic
  plus Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and Maghrebi dialects — that avoids machine-translation
  tells. Use whenever producing Arabic prose: writing original Arabic, translating into
  Arabic (especially from English), or editing/proofreading Arabic for grammar, spelling
  (hamza, ة/ه, ى/ي), agreement, collocations, punctuation, register, or naturalness. Use
  even when the user only asks to "say this in Arabic" or pastes Arabic text to fix.
license: MIT

Writing natural, correct Arabic

This skill helps you produce Arabic that a native editor would accept: grammatically correct, idiomatic, free of typos, and free of the tell-tale signs of machine translation. The single biggest failure mode is **translationese** — transferring English structure word-for-word instead of re-composing the meaning in Arabic. Translate ideas, not words.

Workflow

1. **Pick the register and dialect.** Default to **Modern Standard Arabic (MSA / الفصحى)** for anything formal: news, documents, legal/medical text, UI body copy, subtitles. Use a **dialect** (Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, Maghrebi) or light "white Arabic" only when the context is conversational, marketing, social, or the user asks for it. When unsure, ask which dialect/market — never silently mix dialect into formal MSA. See [register-and-style.md](references/register-and-style.md). 2. **Compose, don't transfer.** Read the whole source sentence, understand the meaning, then write it the way an Arabic speaker would — usually a verb-first sentence with the right collocation — rather than mapping English word order and prepositions. 3. **Self-check** every output against the two checklists below before returning it. 4. **Open the relevant reference file** whenever you are unsure about a specific rule. The reference files hold the detail; this page is just the map.

Top correctness checklist (apply to every Arabic output)

1. **Non-human plurals take feminine-singular agreement.** الكتبُ **جديدةٌ** ("the books are new"), السياراتُ **سريعةٌ** — not جُدُد/سريعات. This is the #1 error. (→ grammar.md) 2. **Verb–subject order changes agreement.** Verb *before* subject (VSO, the neutral order) stays **singular** and agrees only in gender: **ذهب** الطلابُ / **ذهبت** الطالباتُ. Subject *before* verb (SVO) takes **full** agreement: الطلابُ **ذهبوا**. (→ grammar.md) 3. **Iḍāfa (الإضافة):** the first noun (مضاف) takes **no ال and no tanwin**; the second is genitive. كتابُ الطالبِ, not الكتابُ الطالبِ. No adjective between the two parts. (→ grammar.md) 4. **Adjectives follow the noun and agree on all four axes:** gender, number, case, definiteness. البنتُ الكبيرةُ (both definite) vs البنتُ كبيرةٌ ("the girl is big"). (→ grammar.md) 5. **Numbers 3–10 reverse gender** (polarity) and take a plural genitive noun: ثلاثةُ رجالٍ, ثلاثُ فتياتٍ. 11–99 take a singular accusative (tamyīz): عشرون كتابًا. (→ grammar.md) 6. **Hamza** sits on the seat of the **strongest vowel** (kasra ئ > damma ؤ > fatha أ > sukūn ء): رئيس، مسؤول، سأل، شيء. Distinguish wasl (bare ا) from qatʿ (أ/إ) with the و-test. (→ orthography.md) 7. **ة vs ه** (add a suffix: /t/ → ة, /h/ → ه) and **ى vs ي** (trace the root; على the preposition vs عليّ the name). (→ orthography.md) 8. **Use Arabic punctuation glyphs** ، ؛ ؟ (not , ; ?). No space before a mark, one after. In lists, repeat **و** instead of using commas. (→ orthography.md) 9. **Default to undiacritized text;** add ḥarakāt only to remove genuine ambiguity, but always keep a meaning-distinctive shadda (درس vs درّس). Never use kashida (ـــ) to pad. (→ orthography.md) 10. **Right collocations and prepositions.** اتخذ قرارًا (not عمل قرارًا), أثّر **في** (not على in formal MSA), حصل **على**. (→ collocations.md, translationese.md)

The AI-Arabic "smell test" (avoid these tells)

If your draft contains several of these, it reads as machine-made. Fix each:

• **من قبل + passive** → use the active voice and name the agent. ✗ تمت مراجعة الخطة من قبل

اللجنة → ✓ راجعت اللجنةُ الخطة.

• **قام/قم بـ + verbal noun** → use the single verb. ✗ قام بزيارة → ✓ زار. ✗ قم بإدخال كلمة

المرور → ✓ أدخِل كلمة المرور (or the noun إدخال… for a UI label).

• **الخاص بك for every "your"** → use the attached suffix. ✗ الحساب الخاص بك → ✓ حسابك.
• **Overused يتم / تمّ** as an all-purpose passive → prefer a real verb or the internal

passive. ✗ يتم استخدام الأداة → ✓ تُستخدَم الأداة.

• **حيث as a catch-all "where/which/whereby"** → use الذي/التي, إذ, لأنّ, بحيث, or بينما, and

reserve حيث for an actual place/locus.

• **The copular calque "الهدف من … هو …"** → front the verb. ✓ يهدف هذا البحث إلى…
• **Agreement that drifts over distance** (a feminine/plural subject far from its verb

defaulting to masculine) — re-check agreement across the whole sentence.

• **Connector over-explicitation** — stacking بالإضافة إلى ذلك، علاوة على ذلك، من ناحية أخرى.

Native Arabic links clauses with و / فـ / ثم; use heavier connectors sparingly and precisely.

• **Doubled كلما** ("the more… the more") → use it once: كلما أعطيتَ، أخذت.

Where to look (reference files)

| Read this when… | File | |---|---| | Anything about grammar: word order, case (إعراب), agreement, iḍāfa, numbers | [references/grammar.md](references/grammar.md) | | Spelling: hamza, ة/ه, ى/ي, ا/أ, tanwin, punctuation, typos, diacritics | [references/orthography.md](references/orthography.md) | | Removing MT/AI tells; English→Arabic structural pitfalls | [references/translationese.md](references/translationese.md) | | Choosing the natural Arabic verb/phrase instead of a calque | [references/collocations.md](references/collocations.md) | | Register choice, connectors, naturalness, tone/transcreation | [references/register-and-style.md](references/register-and-style.md) | | Names, transliteration, numerals, dates, currency/units, bidi |