No. 12 in Arabic
كان
"Was" or "to be" (past tense).
In a sentence
كان الجو حاراً اليوم.
It was hot today.
Here, 'كان' is used to express past-tense of the verb 'to be', indicating the state of the weather in the past.
لو كان لدي وقت لفعلت ذلك.
If I had time, I would have done it.
In this sentence, 'كان' is used in a conditional clause to describe a hypothetical situation in the past.
أين كان أحمد عندما اتصلت به؟
Where was Ahmed when you called him?
In this example, 'كان' is used as part of a question to ask about someone's state or location in the past.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “كان” in actual Arabic podcasts.
Find “كان” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Arabic podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into العربية, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Arabic books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).