← Back to all Egyptian Arabic verbs
Root Verb
طفا
ʈafa
to float
ط ف و
To distinguish 'float' from 'turn off' (which shares the past tense 'tafa'), Egyptians often retain the 'u' vowel from MSA in the present/future tense (yitfu) for the singular, while applying regular colloquial rules for the feminine and plural.
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Past Affirmative
أنا
I — "I floated"
How these tenses work
The present tense
Person prefixes, plus the dialect's marker for "now" or "usually".
The past tense
One stem, eight endings.
The future
One small prefix or word in front of the present.
Saying "not"
Negating verbs, nouns and adjectives.
Roots and verb forms (Form I–X)
How three root letters and a pattern make a verb.
Verb classes: sound, hollow, defective, doubled
Why some verbs change shape when they conjugate.