High- And Low-Frequency Arabic Verbs and Their Semantic Fields in Everyday Communication: Evidence from Selected Episodes of Hello Jadoo Arabic Cartoon Series

Abstract

This study examines the frequency distribution, semantic fields and usage patterns of Arabic verbs in everyday communication as represented in selected episodes of the Arabic-dubbed Hello Jadoo cartoon series. Using a descriptive corpus-based approach, the study analysed selected dialogue transcripts and identified 1,126 Arabic verb occurrences, which were mapped onto 295 distinct verb lemmas. Based on recurrence, the lemmas were classified into 101 high-frequency verbs and 194 low-frequency verbs. The findings show that the selected dialogues rely on a relatively small core of repeatedly used verbs, with كان (kāna), قال (qāla) and فعل (faʿala) emerging as the most frequent lemmas. These high-frequency verbs were mainly associated with everyday semantic domains such as state or existence, communication, action, movement, desire and food-related activities. The usage-pattern analysis further indicates that these verbs function in practical communicative contexts, including narrating daily actions, describing situations, reporting speech, managing movement, expressing cognition and indicating ability or intention. Overall, the study suggests that Arabic cartoon dialogues can provide contextualised exposure to frequently used verbs in familiar everyday situations and may inform vocabulary selection in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL), particularly by highlighting frequent verbs, semantically relevant and functionally useful for daily communication.