اليوم / أمس / غداً
Time Words for Today and Tomorrow
اليومَ (Today), أمسِ (Yesterday), and غداً (Tomorrow) are the essential building blocks for talking about time in Arabic.
How It Works
To talk about time in Arabic, you need to understand how these three words behave:
- اليومَ (al-yawma): This means 'today'. It is the word for 'day' (يوم) with the definite article. When used as an adverb ('I am going today'), it ends with a fatḥa.
- أمسِ (amsi): This means 'yesterday'. In formal Arabic, it is 'indeclinable' (mabnī), meaning its ending stays as a kasra (-i) regardless of its position in the sentence, as long as it doesn't have 'Al-' in front of it.
- غداً (ghadan): This means 'tomorrow'. It is written with tanwīn fatḥ at the end. The extra 'Alif' at the end is a spelling requirement for this type of ending.
Word Order: You can place these at the start of a sentence to emphasize the time, or at the end for a neutral statement. For example: 'Today I am busy' vs 'I am busy today'.
Examples (4)
- سأذهبُ إلى المكتبةِ غداً.
I will go to the library tomorrow.
Word by Word: I will go to the library tomorrow.
Note the use of the future prefix sa- with 'ghadan'.
- زرتُ صديقي أمسِ.
I visited my friend yesterday.
Word by Word: I visited friend-my yesterday.
The verb is in the past tense because of 'amsi'.
- اليومَ الجوُّ جميلٌ.
Today the weather is beautiful.
Word by Word: The today the weather beautiful.
Here, 'al-yawma' is placed at the beginning for emphasis in a sentence with no verb.
- هل أنتَ مشغولٌ اليومَ؟
Are you busy today?
Word by Word: Question you busy the today?
A common question using hal to ask about current status.
Common Mistakes
Using dialect words like 'bukra' or 'imbāriḥ' in formal writing.
سأراك بكرة.سأراكَ غداً.'Bukra' is common in spoken dialects, but in Modern Standard Arabic, you must use 'ghadan'.
Changing the ending of 'amsi' to 'amsu' or 'amsan'.
كان الجو بارداً أمسُ.كان الجو بارداً أمسِ.When referring specifically to 'yesterday', the word 'amsi' is fixed with a kasra ending and does not change.
How It Connects
Learn This First
To understand these time adverbs, a learner needs to recognize basic word classes (nouns vs. verbs), understand the indefinite ending (tanwin) used in 'tomorrow', and have a basic grasp of verb tenses to use these words in context.
- The Indefinite Ending
The word 'غداً' (tomorrow) uses the indefinite accusative ending (tanwin fat-ha), which is a fundamental orthographic and grammatical feature of this pattern.
Level 1 - Past Tense With He and She
Time adverbs like 'أمس' (yesterday) and 'غداً' (tomorrow) are typically used in conjunction with past and future/present verb forms to indicate when an action occurred.
Level 1
Related Patterns
- Time and Place Without a Preposition
These words belong to the category of adverbs of time and place.
Level 3 - سوف / سـThe Future
The future marker is almost always used in sentences containing 'tomorrow' (ghadan).
Level 2 - The Past Tense
The past tense is used to describe actions that happened 'yesterday' (amsi).
Level 1 - متىWhen
This is the question word used to ask 'when', which these time words answer.
Level 1
Learn Next
Patterns that build on this one.
Words in This Pattern
Practice اليوم / أمس / غداً in Bubblegum
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