Arabic vocabulary
How to say “one day” in Arabic, with pronunciation and real example sentences from OpenArabic texts.
فَشَرِبْتُ يَوْمًا عِنْدَ خِدْنِ لَيِّ حَتَّى ثَمِلْتُ وَزَالَ عَقْلِي،
One day I drank at a man's house until I became intoxicated and my mind left me.
يومًا — one day. A noun for 'day' standing in the adverb-of-time slot, marked by the indefinite accusative ending ('-an'). Arabic does not need a preposition like 'on' here; dropping a time-noun into the accusative is itself the way to say 'one day, at some point', so the case ending alone carries the 'when'.
From: A Night of Reckoning →فَنَأَى بِي فِي طَلَبِ شَيْءٍ يَوْمًا،
Then he went away from me one day to look for something.
يَوْمًا — one day. A noun used as a time-adverb, taking the object-style ending that marks when the action happened. It pins the going to a single particular day, working adverbially rather than as a thing acted on.
From: Trapped and Delivered →اَلْيَوْمُ يَوْمُ الْمَلْحَمَةِ، اَلْيَوْمَ تُسْتَحَلُّ الْكَعْبَةُ
Today is the day of the great battle; today the Kaaba will be desecrated.
اَلْيَوْمَ — today. The same word 'the day' but here in its object case ('-a'), used adverbially to mean 'today / on this day'. Arabic can turn a time-noun into a 'when' adverb just by putting it in the object case, with no preposition needed.
From: Conquest of Mecca Account →فَبَيْنَا نَحْنُ يَوْمًا جُلُوسٌ فِي بَيْتِنَا
One day, while we were sitting in our house.
يَوْمًا — one day. A noun used adverbially to fix the time, 'one day'; its -an accusative is what turns it into a when-phrase rather than a plain object. It plants the scene on a particular day, with no separate word for 'on'.
From: The Secret Migration →فَنَزَلَ يَوْمًا مَنْزِلًا فَدَخَلَ الْأَرَاكَ،
One day he stopped at a lodging, and then he entered the thickets.
يَوْمًا — one day. A time-noun in the adverb ending (the '-an' tail) meaning 'one day'; it answers 'when?' for the halting and needs no preposition, since the ending alone carries the time-of-action role.
From: Umar and the Prophet's Wives →وَلَقَدْ قَعَدْتُ يَوْمًا عَلَى طَرِيقِهِمْ الَّذِي يَخْرُجُونَ مِنْهُ،
And indeed, one day I sat on their road, the road they used to go out from,
يَوْمًا — one day. This noun for 'day' stands in the object form even though it is not an object; Arabic puts a time word into that case to make it adverbial, meaning 'on/for a day'. Its lack of 'the' marks it as 'one (unspecified) day'. This is how Arabic says 'one day' without a preposition.
From: Generosity to the Poor →فَلَعِبَ يَوْمًا بِالنَّرْدِ عَلَى أَنَّ مَنْ قَمَرَ صَاحِبَهُ
So one day he played dice, betting that whoever was his companion's moon.
يَوْمًا — one day. A noun put into the accusative (marked by the '-an' tail) so that it works as a time-adverb, 'one day'. Arabic does not need a preposition like 'on' here; dropping the noun into this case is itself enough to make it answer 'when'. The indefinite ending also gives the sense of 'a certain day'.
From: Luqman's Wisdom and Trial →OpenArabic teaches words like يَوْمًا through real bilingual reading with native audio and spaced-repetition practice.
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