Master Arabic verb conjugation with CAVE

A programmer and Arabic expert, Graeme Andrews (who by the way has written a great tool for Lane’s dictionary) told me about the app CAVE – a very good tool to conjugate Arabic verbs.

The CJKI Arabic Verb Conjugator (CAVE) can be used to conjugate almost every Arabic verb in all tenses and moods.

• 1,700 Arabic verbs are fully conjugated
• English translations for all Arabic inflected forms
• Romanized transliteration to indicate the word stress
• pronounced audio for each of the inflected forms (410,000 items!)
• search for verbs in Arabic, transliterated form or English
• user-friendly interface

Here is how the app looks like:

Cave (مَغارَة) is available for Android and iOS.

Who should use the app?

The author writes on his website: “As the learner is increasingly exposed to Arabic using CAVE as a learning aid, he or she gradually internalizes the rules by osmosis, rather than through a conscious process of rote memorization. Eventually, producing the correct form becomes an automatic, mostly unconscious, process”.

I still believe that memorizing verbs helps a lot, especially if you want to speak fluently. But, as the author puts it, “CAVE puts at the user’s fingertips a wealth of detailed information on every aspect of Arabic verb conjugation.”

Who is behind the app?

CJKI Arabic Verb Conjugator was developed by the CJK Dictionary Institute (CJKI). The author, Jack Halpern, is a lexicographer by profession. He was born in Germany and has lived in Japan over 35 years. He specializes in Japanese and Chinese lexicography and has studied 14 languages and has devoted several decades to the study of linguistics and lexicography. You can find more information about him and his work on his website: www.cjk.org

Read an interview with a developer who has been specializing in this top. Here you go.