Verbs

Kuwaiti only has two tenses, past and present.

The way of forming each tense is almost always the same, no matter what verb you are using.

The following table shows the different forms of the verb 'to write.'

		Past tense	Present tense
I	ana	katabt	aktib
You (m)	inta	katabt	tiktib
You (f)	intay	katabtay	tiktibiin
You (pl)	intaw	katabtaw	tiktibuun
We	a7naa	katabnaa	naktib
He	uhuwa	katab	yiktib
She	ihiya	katabat	tiktib
They	uhuma	katabaw	yiktibuun

Once you have all the parts in bold committed to memory, all you then have to learn is the past tense root and present tense root of any verb.

What do I mean by this? Well, if you want to say 'I' do something in the present tense, the Kuwaiti word is always going to start with an 'a.' So once you know that the present tense root of the verb 'to write' is ktib, you can easily conjugate aktib ('I write').

And if for example you want to say "they" did something using the past tense, the Kuwaiti word is always going to end in 'aw'. Once you know that the past tense root of the verb 'to write' is katab, you can easily conjugate katabaw ('they wrote').

Earlier I told a white lie when I said there are only two tenses in Kuwaiti. There is indeed a future tense, but you express it simply by putting the word raa7 before any verb in the present tense.

See below:

		Present tense	Future tense
I	ana	aktib	raa7 aktib
You (m)	inta	tiktib	raa7 tiktib
You (f)	intay	tiktibiin	raa7 tiktibiin
You (pl)	intaw	tiktibuun	raa7 tiktibuun
We	a7naa	naktib	raa7 naktib
He	uhuwa	yiktib	raa7 yiktib
She	ihiya	tiktib	raa7 tiktib
They	uhuma	yiktibuun	raa7 yiktibuun