What is a Root Ladder?

What do you notice about this sentence? 

كَتَبَ الكَبير على الكُرسي دَرسًا

(Translation: "The old man wrote a lesson on the chair")

Let's ignore the preposition على and focus on the four content words (the nouns and verbs).

كَتَبَ ـ الكَبير ـ الكُرسي ـ دَرسًا

Let's examine the trilateral root consonants of these four words. What do you notice now?

(ك ت ب) ( ك ب ر) (ك ر س) ( د ر س )

Each word shares exactly two root consonants with the previous word

(ك ت ب) ( ك ب ر) (ك ر س) ( د ر س )

This is the key rule to the Root Ladder. You can call this rule the "shared-consonants rule." 

This is similar to the basic principle of Word Ladders, if you're familiar with those. 

The original sentence at the top of this page ( كتب الكبير على الكرسي درسًا ) would be the solution to a Root Ladder, also called the solution sentence. But normally you aren't just given the solution! You have to find it yourself using the clues you're given. Click here to learn about the clues and how to play.