I want to write this sentence in MSA: I have lived in this country for a long time and I know it well. My question is if I use the word بلد for country, do I still use the feminine pronouns, etc? (I believe countries are feminine). So I understand when using the name of a country or a feminine word such as دولة , but what about if I use بلد ? My attempt: سكنتُ في هذا / هذه البلد وقت طويل و أعرفها جيدا شكرا
بلد can be treated as both feminine and masculine, although some would argue that it's better to be treated as a masculine since the Quran, a highly authoritative source of the language, did so.
Hi ARB87, Just wanted to point out that your sentence means "I lived in this country for a long time...," not "I have lived in this country..." To express that -- the concept of "such-and-such person(s) has (have) done something for some period of time" -- you can use the active participle, as Elroy has done, or the present tense form of the verb, with the preposition منذ (which means since): أنا مقيم/أقيم في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ أنا ساكن/أسكن في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ أنا قاطن/أقطن في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ One more quick note: وقت طويل has an adverbial function in your translation attempt. It is a ظرف زمان (circumstance of time) and as such is in حالة النصب (the accusative case). So the sentence would more correctly be: سكنت في هذا البلد وقتًا طويلًا.ـ
