Maltese verbs

I feel so frustrated and irritated by Maltese resouces online!

I decide to just look up some sentences, learn them by heart and go by that.
I wanted to find
"I am, you are and so on"
"I have a book, you have a book..."
"I read, you read..."

Sample verbs Maltese
"I wrote, you wrote..." But I do nothing with that!
And what's this? I need to know if a verb is of Arabic descent, Italian descent or English loan? OMG! No!

Maltese present tense
But... but giving me different subject doesn't help me at all! 

I am used to be presented with verbs in orderly manner. There is a verb conjugator somewhere - or a system in which you can just put a verb, any verb, and after some actions, out comes a verb in right tense.

Kirjoittaa - to write in infinite form

present tense:
Minä kirjoitan
Sinä kirjoitat
Hän/se kirjoittaa
Me kirjoitamme
Te kirjoitatte
He/ne kirjoittavat

past tense
Minä kirjoitin
sinä kirjoitit
hän/se kirjoitti
me kirjoitamme
te kirjoitatte
he kirjoittavat.

Let's start there.

What is "to write" in Maltese?
I'll wait.
"to write in Maltese" gives me - several options on Maltese keyboard online. Maltese alphabet. "How will we write words derived from English in Maltese..." uh. No
Will Google translate give me this?
No. It translate "to write" into tikteb. Tikteb is not "to write". Tikteb is not the verb "write" in basic form. Tikteb is "you write". (I suppose. I am not sure.)

Maltese dictionary! OK! Now we are getting somewhere!

"Search in... Maltese?" It's a Maltese to English dictionary. Uh...

Well... ok, let's put in tikteb. It's not a base word, so it probably won't find anything. :-(

Oh! It did find something! "kiteb" - ok... I suppose that's "to write" in basic form.

So... what is this tikteb, then? Let's click on kiteb.

WTF?
"Surface form"? "Aspect"? "Polarity"? WTF!

Tikteb is "imperfective positive P3 singular feminine". So... She wrote?
No. In Maltese Imperfective is "An ongoing event. In Maltese, this is often used for the present."
Uh. Well... OK...
(BTW; it's also imperfective positive P2 singular, so "you write" is also a correct translation.)
(And I also noticed that the "negatives" have the x in the end, which means they are really the negative - I don't write, she didn't write and so on. I am very glad that I know that. Because otherwise I would be wondering about the polarity as well.)

But, OK, this is pretty cool, actually.

Let's find out if I can find the present and past tense here.

nikteb
tikteb
jikteb
tikteb
niktbu
tiktbu
jiktbu

ktibt
ktibt
kiteb
kitbet
kibna
ktibtu
kitbu

Excuse me, what? The present tense I can see, there's some sort of form going on.
 ni-KTB, ti-KTB, ji-KTB, ti-KTB, ni-KTB-u, ti-KTB-u, ji-KTB-u
But... past? ktb+t? ktb+t, ktb, ktbt, kbn, ktbt, ktb... I am going to need KBT after this... Damn!

Let's take another verb and compare, to see if it starts making any sense. Let's take kiseb - to get
So... it should be niksb, tiksb, jiksb, tiksb, niksbu, tiksbu, jiksbu - and it is.

nikseb
tikseb
jikseb
tikseb
niksbu
tiksbu
jiksbu

and perfect... ksbt, ksbt, ksb... er... kisbet, kisbna, ksibtu, kisbu?

ksibt
ksibt
kiseb
kisbet
ksibna
ksibtu
kisbu

Ok... it does look similar.
Next.
Ħoloq - to create. I assume the root is Ħ-L-Q
niħlq, tiħlq, jiħlq, tiħlq, niħlqu, tiħlqu, jiħlqu

Imperfect tense
noħloq
toħloq
joħloq
toħloq
noħolqu
toħolqu
joħolqu

oh... so just change the vowel. OK. Got it.
So... perfect tense should be ħloqt, ħloqt, ħoloq, ħloqet, ħloqna, ħloqtu, ħolqu

Perfect tense
ħloqt
ħloqt
ħoloq
ħolqot
ħloqna
ħloqtu
ħolqu

Oh! By George, she's got it!

the Italian origin verbs

nkanta
tkanta
jkanta
tkanta
nkantaw - could be nikantau as well
tkantaw
jkantaw

easy peasy.

kantajt
kantajt
kanta
kantat
kantajna
kantajtu
kantaw

Now, this is orderly. Good.
Can I use this information with my Arabic descent verbs?

It would be kantat, kantat, kanta, kantat, kantana, kantatu, kantu - and it almost is. Kantajt.. jt... hmmm...

OH DEAR; WHAT A RELIEF!!! There IS sense to this!

what about the English loanverbs?

iddawnlowdja - to download

niddawnlowdja
tiddawnlowdja
jiddawnlowdja
tiddawnlowdja
niddawnlowdjaw
tiddawnlowdjaw
jiddawnlowdjaw

so the perfect would be
iddawnlowdjajt, iddawnlowdjajt, iddawnlowdja, iddawnlowdjat,
iddawnlowdjajna, iddawnlowdjajtu, iddawnlowdjaw


and it is:
iddawnlowdjajt
iddawnlowdjajt
iddawnlowdja
iddawnlowdjat
iddawnlowdjajna
iddawnlowdjajtu
iddawnlowdjaw

YES!!!

So - kerta kiellon päälle (once on the forbiddance, or let's do it just once more after we are told not to do it), as we say in Finland... the -j- in loanverbs...

ħadem or ħdm

it should be
naħdem
taħdem
jaħdem
taħdem
naħdmu
taħdmu
jaħdmu

AND IT IS!!! IT IS!!!! YOOHOO!!!

perfect:
ħadmit
ħadmit
ħadem
ħadmet
ħadmina
ħademtu
ħademu

No. It's

ħdimt
ħdimt
ħadem
ħadmet
ħdimna
ħdimtu
ħadmu

I'm not too far off, though. :-) But forget the -j- :-D

So - the rule:

Take the verb and reduce it into the three letter root. Let's take rebaħ - to win :-) Vincero!

rebaħ - rbħ (Now, try to say those three letters as if it was a word - erbah? rebah? Sounds like a frog? But also like rebaħ...)

rule  -> this is what it sounds like to me - and this is what it really is

N-rbħ -> nirbaħ - and it is nirbaħ
T-rbħ  -> tirbaħ - and it is tirbaħ
J-rbħ  -> jirbaħ - and it is jirbaħ
T-rbħ  -> tirbaħ - and it is tirbaħ
N-rbħ-u  -> nirebħu - and it is nirbħu
T-rbħ-u  -> tirebħu - and it is tirbħu
J-rbħ-u  -> jirebħu - and it is jirbħu

rbħ-t  -> rebaħt - and it is rbaħt
rbħ-t  -> rebaħ - and it is rbaħt
rbħ  -> rebaħ - and it is rebaħ
rbħet  -> rebħet - and it is rebħet
rbħ-na  -> rebħna - and it is rbaħna
rbħ-tu  -> rebħtu - and it is rbaħtu
rbħ-u  -> rebħu - and it is rebħu

And, BTW, I learned something else about Maltese today. This letter: Għ - is not "G H". It's Ayin. You know, like in Arabic (another Semitic language) we have ayn and ghayn. GHayn!!! I mean... I'm an idiot! The alphabet names - THAT WERE THE FIRST THING I LEARNED ABOUT MALTESE -  go "...effe, ġe, ge, AYIN, AKKA..." Here I have been wondering why it's sometimes silent and sometimes "ai"... *sigh*

But - now I have been an idiot, so you don't have to be :-D

("Akka", btw, comes from Latin haca, and is from the same root as the Spanish ache - and pronounced the same way - as ɣ. Or, as it is, it isn't pronounced.

And there's another connection to you. Maltese hija - she, Spanish hija - girl.