Grammar and language usage (Qawaid): parts of speech, sentence structure, idioms
What Qawaid tests
Qawaid tests your control of Urdu grammar: parts of speech (ism, fail, harf), sentence structure (jumla), number and gender, and idiomatic usage (muhavare, zarb-ul-masal). Questions often ask you to identify a category, correct a sentence or use an idiom in context.
Core rules
- Ism is a noun or name: ism-e-khas (proper), ism-e-aam (common), ism-e-zameer (pronoun), ism-e-sifat (adjective).
- Fail is a verb: fail-e-mazi (past), fail-e-muzare (present/future), fail-e-amr (command), fail-e-nahi (prohibition).
- Harf is a particle or function word: ne, ko, se, mein, par, aur, lekin.
- In a simple sentence, identify mubtada (subject) and khabar (predicate); where there is an object, identify mafool.
- Learn muhavare as whole units; their meaning is not the sum of the words. Zarb-ul-masal is a proverb with a fixed lesson.
- Check wahid/jam'a and muzakkar/muannas before writing the final sentence.
Worked example
Sentence: 'Ahmad ne kitaab padhi.' Reasoning: Ahmad is ism-e-khas and mubtada; ne is a harf marking the ergative; kitaab is ism-e-aam and mafool; padhi is fail-e-mazi. If the question asks 'fail kya hai?', the answer is padhi, not Ahmad. If it asks for the mafool, answer kitaab. This step-by-step labeling prevents category confusion.
Traps
- Calling every important word a fail.
- Treating an idiom literally, e.g., explaining a muhavara word by word.
- Mixing ism-e-sifat with ism-e-aam.
- Ignoring number and gender agreement in the corrected sentence.
- Writing a grammatically correct sentence that does not use the required idiom.