In short

English builds its “from there / made of that” words with a scatter of endings - Egypt/Egyptian, Lebanon/Lebanese, Japan/Japanese, gold/golden, science/scientific - and you simply have to know which one each word happens to take. Arabic has one ending for all of it: ـِيٌّ, a kasra plus a doubled ya. Add it to a country, a city, a people, a material or an abstract noun and you get an adjective meaning “belonging to that, coming from that, made of that”: مِصْر → مِصْرِيٌّ، ذَهَبٌ → ذَهَبِيٌّ. Arabic grammar calls the ending النِّسْبَة, “the attribution”.

Two facts carry the whole lesson. First, the ya is doubled - the shadda is part of the word, and the case ending still sits on top of it: مِصْرِيٌّ، مِصْرِيًّا، مِصْرِيٍّ. Second, a nisba is an entirely ordinary adjective once it is built, so everything from lesson 8 applies unchanged: ة for a woman (مِصْرِيَّةٌ), الـ when the noun it describes is definite, and the same case as its noun. This one suffix is the fastest vocabulary multiplier in Modern Standard Arabic - a great many of the adjectives in a newspaper sentence are nisbas.

The rule

1. One suffix, two forms. The masculine is ـِيٌّ and the feminine is ـِيَّةٌ. The consonant before the suffix takes a kasra, and the ya carries a shadda:

• مِصْر → مِصْرِيٌّ (an Egyptian man, Egyptian) - مِصْرِيَّةٌ (an Egyptian woman)
• لُبْنان → لُبْنانِيٌّ - لُبْنانِيَّةٌ

2. The shadda is the word. ـِيّ is not a long vowel; it is a kasra followed by two ya’s. You can hear it: مِصْرِيٌّ has a held, doubled consonant that a plain final ي does not. In ordinary unvocalized print (مصري) nothing shows, which is exactly why beginners stop pronouncing it - and a nisba said without the doubling sounds wrong to every Arabic ear. Write the shadda in this lesson and say it out loud until your mouth remembers.

3. It still takes a case ending. The nisba declines like any triptote noun or adjective. The ending goes after the shadda, and the indefinite accusative gets its usual alif seat:

• مَرْفوع: هُوَ مِصْرِيٌّ. / الطّالِبُ المِصْرِيُّ
• مَنْصوب: رَأَيْتُ طالِبًا مِصْرِيًّا. / رَأَيْتُ الطّالِبَ المِصْرِيَّ.
• مَجْرور: تَكَلَّمْتُ مَعَ طالِبٍ مِصْرِيٍّ. / مَعَ الطّالِبِ المِصْرِيِّ

4. Building it, base by base. Four situations cover almost everything you will meet:

• Just add it. A base ending in a consonant takes the suffix straight: لُبْنان → لُبْنانِيٌّ، العِراق → عِراقِيٌّ، بَغْداد → بَغْدادِيٌّ.
• Drop a final ة. The tā’ marbūṭa always disappears first: مَكَّة → مَكِّيٌّ، القاهِرَة → قاهِرِيٌّ، فِضَّة → فِضِّيٌّ.
• Drop the final ا of a foreign name. Names borrowed with ـا or ـيا cut back to the last real consonant: فَرَنْسا → فَرَنْسِيٌّ، أَمْريكا → أَمْريكِيٌّ، سُورِيا → سُورِيٌّ، أَلْمانِيا → أَلْمانِيٌّ، إيطالِيا → إيطالِيٌّ.
• Drop the الـ of a country name. When the name carries an article, the article is not part of the nisba: اليابان → يابانِيٌّ، الصّين → صينِيٌّ، المَغْرِب → مَغْرِبِيٌّ، السّودان → سُودانِيٌّ، الكُوَيْت → كُوَيْتِيٌّ.

The article comes back later, for a different reason - when the whole phrase is definite: الطّالِبُ اليابانِيُّ, “the Japanese student”. That الـ is agreement with طالِب (lesson 8), not a leftover from اليابان.

5. Irregulars: a short list to memorise. A handful of very common bases change shape, and several of them grow a و before the suffix. There is a historical reason (a weak final letter, or a shortened stem), but at this stage they are simply items to learn:

• مَدينَة → مَدَنِيٌّ (urban, civil) - the stem itself shrinks
• سَنَة → سَنَوِيٌّ (annual), لُغَة → لُغَوِيٌّ (linguistic), يَد → يَدَوِيٌّ (manual)
• أَخ → أَخَوِيٌّ (brotherly), أَب → أَبَوِيٌّ (paternal), سَماء → سَماوِيٌّ (heavenly)

When you are not sure, look the nisba up rather than inventing one. A dictionary lists it as its own entry.

6. Materials and colours. The same suffix on a substance gives “made of it”, and often “the colour of it” as well:

خَشَبٌ → خَشَبِيٌّ (wooden), زُجاجٌ → زُجاجِيٌّ (glass), قُطْنٌ → قُطْنِيٌّ (cotton), ذَهَبٌ → ذَهَبِيٌّ (gold, golden), فِضَّةٌ → فِضِّيٌّ (silver).

Arabic keeps the older phrasing too - بابٌ مِنْ خَشَبٍ, “a door of wood” - and both are current. What you may not do is mix them: مِنْ takes the plain noun, never the nisba.

7. Far beyond nationalities. Any noun with a field of meaning can produce one, and MSA leans on this constantly: عِلْمٌ → عِلْمِيٌّ (scientific), سِياسَةٌ → سِياسِيٌّ (political), اِقْتِصادٌ → اِقْتِصادِيٌّ (economic), تاريخٌ → تاريخِيٌّ (historical), ثَقافَةٌ → ثَقافِيٌّ (cultural), طَبيعَةٌ → طَبيعِيٌّ (natural), قانونٌ → قانونِيٌّ (legal), رَسْمٌ → رَسْمِيٌّ (official).

Build these from the singular: قَوانينُ is the plural of قانونٌ, and the adjective is قانونِيٌّ, not anything built on the plural. A handful of fixed words do sit on a plural (أَخْلاقٌ → أَخْلاقِيٌّ, “ethical”), but those are vocabulary, not a licence to make your own.

8. It behaves like any other adjective. Nothing about agreement is special. The nisba follows its noun and copies gender, number, definiteness and case:

• الطّالِبُ المِصْرِيُّ - المِصْرِيَّةُ is what you write for a woman
• سِفارَةٌ أَلْمانِيَّةٌ - both indefinite
• في الشَّرِكَةِ الفَرَنْسِيَّةِ - both definite and مَجْرور

9. It is also a noun. مِصْرِيٌّ on its own means “an Egyptian”, exactly as in English. And the feminine nisba, made definite, is how Arabic names a language: العَرَبِيَّةُ، الفَرَنْسِيَّةُ، اليابانِيَّةُ - short for اللُّغَةُ العَرَبِيَّةُ and so on. Both halves of that phrase are feminine, which is why *اللُّغَةُ العَرَبِيُّ is impossible.

10. Plurals. For people, the ordinary sound plurals of lesson 9 do the work. The ya keeps its shadda and takes the vowel that the ending requires:

• masculine: مِصْرِيُّونَ (مَرْفوع) / مِصْرِيِّينَ (مَنْصوب and مَجْرور)
• feminine: مِصْرِيَّاتٌ / مِصْرِيَّاتٍ

A few very common nationality words are normally pluralised with a broken plural instead of ـُونَ, and these are worth memorising as vocabulary: عَرَبِيٌّ → عَرَبٌ، أَلْمانِيٌّ → أَلْمانٌ، رُوسِيٌّ → رُوسٌ، تُرْكِيٌّ → أَتْراكٌ، كُرْدِيٌّ → أَكْرادٌ (the regular تُرْكِيُّونَ، رُوسِيُّونَ exist too). They are plurals of people, so what follows them is plural too: العَرَبُ الكِرامُ، رَأَيْتُ الأَلْمانَ.

11. Non-human plurals: back to the feminine singular. The rule of lesson 11 outranks everything here. If the noun is a plural of things, its nisba stays feminine singular, however many things there are:

• كُتُبٌ عَرَبِيَّةٌ - Arabic books
• السَّيّاراتُ اليابانِيَّةُ - the Japanese cars
• الدُّوَلُ العَرَبِيَّةُ - the Arab states

The plural مِصْرِيُّونَ is only ever for people.

12. The nisba against the إِضافَة. Lesson 20 gave you one way to link two nouns: سِفارَةُ فَرَنْسا, “the embassy of France”. The nisba gives another: السِّفارَةُ الفَرَنْسِيَّةُ, “the French embassy”. Both are correct Arabic. The difference is that an إِضافَة points at one specific owner, while the nisba describes a kind - and only the nisba can be made indefinite (سِفارَةٌ فَرَنْسِيَّةٌ) or carry الـ of its own.

13. Recognition only. The feminine ending ـِيَّة also builds abstract nouns from the same bases: الحُرِّيَّةُ (freedom), الجِنْسِيَّةُ (nationality), الإِنْسانِيَّةُ (humanity), المَسْؤُولِيَّةُ (responsibility). Read them as words for now; the machinery is the same suffix.

Two neighbouring topics are not here. “More Egyptian than” and “the most famous” use a different word shape altogether (lesson 28), and the “little / dear” endings of التَّصْغير are lesson 57. Note also that many place names - مِصْرُ، لُبْنانُ، بَغْدادُ - take no tanwīn themselves (lesson 41), while their nisbas are perfectly ordinary words that do: مِصْرِيٌّ.

Forms & patterns

Formation by base type

Materials

Irregulars worth memorising

The full declension of مِصْرِيّ - the case ending sits after the shadda

Number - people take the sound plurals

Nationality words with a broken human plural

Left out of these tables: the nisba of a two-word place name, and the no-longer-productive type that adds ـانِيّ (رُوحانِيٌّ). Neither is needed to build nisbas at this level.

Examples

Common mistakes

• أَنا مِصْرِيُ. -> أَنا مِصْرِيٌّ. - two things are missing: the shadda on the ya and the tanwīn on top of it. Unvocalized print hides both, but your pronunciation cannot.
• أَنا لُبْنانُ. -> أَنا لُبْنانِيٌّ. - لُبْنان is the country. Saying it as a predicate claims that you are Lebanon; the person needs the نِسْبَة ending.
• هِيَ مِصْرِيٌّ. -> هِيَ مِصْرِيَّةٌ. - a woman takes ـِيَّةٌ. This is the most frequent agreement slip in the whole lesson, because the masculine form is the one you learn first.
• اللُّغَةُ العَرَبِيُّ -> اللُّغَةُ العَرَبِيَّةُ - لُغَة is feminine, so its adjective is feminine. The same for السِّفارَةُ الفَرَنْسِيَّةُ، الجامِعَةُ الأَمْريكِيَّةُ.
• مَكَّةِيٌّ -> مَكِّيٌّ - the ة never survives in front of the suffix. Drop it first, then attach ـِيّ: القاهِرَة → قاهِرِيٌّ، فِضَّة → فِضِّيٌّ.
• أَمْريكاوِيٌّ -> أَمْريكِيٌّ - most foreign names ending in ـا simply lose that alif and put nothing in its place. The same for فَرَنْسا → فَرَنْسِيٌّ. A few do insert و - النِّمْسا → نِمْساوِيٌّ - so look an unfamiliar name up.
• هُوَ اليابانِيٌّ. -> هُوَ يابانِيٌّ. - the الـ belongs to the country’s name, not to the adjective, and a word can never carry الـ and tanwīn at the same time.
• رَأَيْتُ الطُّلّابَ المِصْرِيُّونَ. -> رَأَيْتُ الطُّلّابَ المِصْرِيِّينَ. - the sound masculine plural of a nisba declines like any other: ـُونَ only in the nominative.
• كُتُبٌ عَرَبِيَّاتٌ -> كُتُبٌ عَرَبِيَّةٌ - books are not people. A plural of things takes a feminine singular adjective, nisba or not.
• بابٌ مِنْ خَشَبِيٍّ -> بابٌ خَشَبِيٌّ or بابٌ مِنْ خَشَبٍ - two ways of saying “wooden”, and mixing them doubles the marking. مِنْ takes the plain material noun.

Tips

• Store the country and its nisba as one item in your vocabulary list - مِصْرُ / مِصْرِيٌّ، فَرَنْسا / فَرَنْسِيٌّ. Learning the country alone leaves you unable to say who you are.
• Say the doubled ya deliberately: مِصْ - رِيّ. If it sounds like an ordinary long ī, you are dropping the shadda, and that habit is much harder to undo later than to avoid now.
• Automate the feminine. Any time the person is a woman, or the noun is feminine, reach for ـِيَّة before you finish the phrase.
• Before building, run the base through three questions: does it end in ة? does it end in ا? does it start with الـ? Remove whatever the answer says, then attach ـِيّ.
• Don’t build a nisba from a plural yourself. Go back to the singular first: قَوانين → قانونٌ → قانونِيٌّ.
• Collect nisbas from real headlines - سِياسِيّ، اِقْتِصادِيّ، عالَمِيّ، رَسْمِيّ. A large share of the adjectives in a news sentence are built with this one suffix, so each new noun you learn is quietly an adjective too.
• Leave the handful of irregulars (مَدَنِيّ، لُغَوِيّ، سَنَوِيّ) as vocabulary items. There is no rule you can apply reliably at A1, and there are not many of them.
• Ignore “more Egyptian” and “the most famous” for now - that is a different word shape entirely, and it arrives at lesson 28.