Arabic in bite-sized parts (now with doses of JP & RU)

[Zireael]

Sanad, one of the Yemenis from this year, wants to do a language exchange - Arabic for Polish.

All that's left is figuring out the practicalities - when and where.

Also, I'm testing another pair of hearing aids (Starkey 3 series) for 2 weeks starting today.

So far, they are the best out of the all those I've tried and the only ones out of two which give me a noticeable improvement.

Best of all, they have this cool voice indicator feature. I have the low battery alert set to my voice in my native Polish, but the specialist mentioned that there are other languages to choose from. I decided to Google it.
Just take a look at this movie, from 00:34 to the end. I started drooling and I'm seriously considering picking Spanish or Arabic for said voice indicators whenever I do get these aids for good

[Zireael]

The exchange with Sanad obviously didn't happen - he's left for Yemen already.

He was pretty impressed with my writing 'sanabqa ala ittisal' on FB

***

15th July, I read an article about Arabic script and fonts linked to elsewhere on HTLAL. The highlight of it, for me, was the part about native Arabic speakers not being able to vocalize an unwovelled text 100% correctly.

I guess the answer to the question I asked of Sarah a year ago ('How do you know which wovels are there?') is 'We don't'


***
I'm stuck at a resort/health clinic for 2 weeks. When doing exercises of the brain-
numbing kind (move your leg back and forth) my favorite pastime is counting under my
breath in a foreign language. For the last 3 years the language of choice was Spanish.

You can probably guess what is the pick this year. I was pleasantly surprised to discover
I can count up to 99 with little difficulty except for mixing up 6 & 7.

[Zireael]

A huge update since I noticed I've been neglecting the log here.

29/07
I've gotten messages on FB from Niaz and Aida. Also it turns out that a friend of mine
knows an Iraqi girl named Yasmin. I'll try to get in touch with said Iraqi girl


A sentence from a conversation with Niaz I am having trouble with:
عفوا لاشكر على واجب
Is the first word 'excuse me' or 'you're welcome'?

Also: Houna aythan . What is the second word? Aida uses Arabizi almost
exclusively and trying to feed it to Yamli gave me nothing conclusive.

New words
? اتمنى لك الخير I wish you all the best

12/08
I've watched Where do we go now? (original title: وهلّأ لوين؟) yesterday.
The movie is a bit heavy-handed with the message, rather like hammer-dropping it, but I had lots of fun reading bilingual credits and the dedication at the end:
اًم لنحن
'to our mother(s)'
Funnily enough, the word mother was in singular and not in plural...

EDIT 18/08: Might be it was أم لنا- it was dark in the cinema and I couldn't write it down immediately and only jotted it down when got back home.

17/08
Not directly Arabic-related, but:
I had a trio of friends, siblings (Polish mother, ? father I never met). The boy was named Mustafa, the older girl was Aisha and the younger Binta.
Therefore theirs were the first names I'd asked Sarah to spell when I started learning Arabic in Jan 2013. I was very surprised to learn that while Mustafa and Aisha are indeed Arabic names, Binta is not.
I did a bit of research that year and it turned out Binta is a name which is used solely in Senegal, with some tentative links to Arabic بنت or maybe something else I forgot, too.

A day ago, I was watching Zurich 2014 and there was a Belgian athlete named Nafissatou Thiam - I googled her name and her father is Senegalese.

The catch? Aisha's name was either polonised (Aisza) or spelled as Aissatou.

Therefore I am reasonably sure the father of the trio was Senegalese It's been years since I've seen them, though.

26/08
What does nasara نصارى mean? I've came across it on a friend's FB feed but he doesn't know any Arabic (it was a reference to the Christians in the Middle East).

Next day's answer on HTLAL: Plural of نصراني , "Nazarene", a.k.a. "Christian".

01/10
Still getting my daily dose of Arabic via FB posts (Niaz is posting pretty much 1 Arabic picture a day).

In other news, I'm not doing much. Especially that I found a German novel in a library so I'm slowly making my way through to refresh my German.

10/10
Malala Yousafzai ملاله یوسفزۍ receives the Nobel Peace Prize today, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate ever at age 17.

I guess it's time to find out how's Nobel Peace Prize in Arabic - even if the Pakistani sources won't cover it, other Arabic-language websites certainly will!

11/10
A friendly soul at Alternate History forums solved my problem - time to go look for Arabic sources on Malala, since I believe she's the first female Islamic Nobel Prize winner.

Acapela, as usual, is the key to getting the pronunciation (I always pick one of the male voices since I find them easier to understand with my hearing impairment)

New phrases
Gubizat Nobil al-salaam جائزة نوبل للسلام Nobel Peace Prize

24/10
One of my Yemeni friends just liked a Yemeni Wildlife Foundation. Said foundation has a nice big bilingual logo on the FB page - and another website with a nice big bilingual logo which is slightly different.

Cue comparisons and using Acapela...

New words
Al-muasisaالمؤسسة foundation
Himaya(t) حمايةprotection
البريةwild
الحياة البريّة wildlife

26/10
My Tunisian friend just posted on FB.
نحبك يا تونس

Aratools gives multiple possibilities for the first word, including:
your weeping (noun)
nahabki we love you (what I assumed first)
we crawl/give you (???)
he weeps for you (?) - I think I can exclude this one, since Tunis is feminine



New words
Saha صحة truth

3/11
I've just watched a documentary on Dubai (the city).

New words
Burdʒ برجtower
Al Muntaha المنتهىhighest, ultimate
Al Mahara المهارةoyster
Rayhaan ريحانbasil
Nakheel نخيل‎palms

09/11
Two things this time.

I've noticed my post counter on HTLAL reads 444 (well, 445 now).

So to celebrate, time to learn how to write and say it in Arabic!

اربعمئة و اربعة و اربعون

Arba'u mi'a wa arbatun wa arba'un

Binta's Polish friend posted a photo of herself, Binta and some other Polish friends in Arabic garb. The photo is captioned عائلة - "family" (yes, in Arabic). Dunno what it's about, but Binta looks really epic (she is the only one to have the "correct" skintone, being half-Senegalese )

New words
Mi'a(t) مئةhundred
Mi'ataan مئتأنtwo hundred
Arba'u mi'a اربعمئة Four hundred

A'ila (?) عائلةfamily (synonymous to al-asrat الأسرة)

[eskandar]

It'd probably be better to post your questions in the Arabic forum itself, but I'll try to help you here.

A sentence from a conversation with Niaz I am having trouble with:
عفوا لاشكر على واجب
Is the first word 'excuse me' or 'you're welcome'?

Most likely "you're welcome". The phrase following it (لا شکر علی واجب) basically means the same, so the whole thing reads like "You're welcome, don't mention it."

Also: Houna aythan . What is the second word?

Probably هنا ايضاً (the second word being ايضاً ayDan 'too, also') = "here, too"

? اتمنى لك الخير I wish you all the best

Your translation sounds fine to me.

Malala Yousafzai ملاله یوسفزۍ receives the Nobel Peace Prize today, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate ever at age 17.

I guess it's time to find out how's Nobel Peace Prize in Arabic - even if the Pakistani sources won't cover it, other Arabic-language websites certainly will!

"Other" Arabic-language websites? You know Arabic is not spoken in Pakistan, right?

A friendly soul at Alternate History forums solved my problem - time to go look for Arabic sources on Malala, since I believe she's the first female Islamic Nobel Prize winner.

The first was Anwar Sadat in 1978; others have included Yasser Arafat, Shirin Ebadi, Mohamed ElBaradei, Muhammad Yunus, and Tawakal Karman.

Gubizat Nobil al-salaam جائزة نوبل للسلام Nobel Peace Prize

That would be jaa'izat nobil lissalaam.

[Zireael]

Thanks Eskandar, I'm using Acapela to get the readings of the new words and even though I use male voices, I do mishear them sometimes - joys of hearing impairment

I'd prefer not to have two threads, though. Unless there's a general 'ask questions' thread in Arabic section?

[Meera]

12/08
I've watched Where do we go now? (original title: وهلّأ لوين؟) yesterday.
The movie is a bit heavy-handed with the message, rather like hammer-dropping it, but I had lots of fun reading bilingual credits and the dedication at the end:
اًم لنحن
'to our mother(s)'
Funnily enough, the word mother was in singular and not in plural...

That movie is awesome. I loved the Russian/Arabic mixed song in it.

[Zireael]

Heheh, that song was amazing!


***
Reading memoirs of a Polish woman who traveled quite a bit during the WWII and afterwards. Eastern Poland - Kazakhstan - Lebanon - Palestine - Great Britain - Poland, basically Gen. Władysław Anders's route.

And there's a crappy quality photo of the author's bilingual (French-Arabic) Lebanon 1945 ID.
Problem is, some Arabic words are illegible or smudged (الاسم had a smudge which made it look like الابم lol), and I can't read them.

Problematic words
الشرة or something similar as an equivalent of French prenoms (first names)
تاربخ meaning date (in date of birth)
عا meaning place (in place of birth)

الاسلبة (follows اجنبية to form an equivalent of French D'origine / Eng. nationality)


New words
bitaqat بطاقة card
huwayyat هوية identity
muwaqqatat موقتة temporary

الوالدة [/B] mother
الولادة birth
Adʒnabiya(t) اجنبية foreign/female foreigner


الشرة evil

[eskandar]

تاربخ meaning date (in date of birth)

That would be تاريخ taariikh.

الشرة evil

I think evil is just الشرّ al-sharr.

[Zireael]

Thanks eskandar! Any ideas for the others?

***
I've read about the swimming championships held recently in الدوحة. The funny thing is, neither Polish nor English sources can agree on how to pronounce the name of the city /doha/ vs /dauha/. I guess it's some sort of a dialect thing.

Help?

[vijayjohn]

I've read about the swimming championships held recently in الدوحة. The funny thing is, neither Polish nor English sources can agree on how to pronounce the name of the city /doha/ vs /dauha/. I guess it's some sort of a dialect thing.

Help?

Yeah, I think the one with the [o:] is Gulf Arabic whereas [aw] is MSA.

[eskandar]

Thanks eskandar! Any ideas for the others?

No problem. For nationality, I bet what you were seeing was الجنسية الاصلية al-jinsiyya al-aSliyya. Don't know about the other problematic ones.

[Zireael]

I'm adding some paragraphs to my MA since I'm supposed to hand in the complete draft by end of January and only spend the next semester doing editing.

They include a short note on sign languages. First, I pulled up a list of sign languages from Wikipedia and saw some interesting entries (Aboriginal languages, Plains Indian trade pidgin) but also...

New phrases
lugha al-isharat لغة الإشارة sign language

[Zireael]

Today's UN Arabic Language Day.

An article on Arabic-derived words in English I found: link

[Zireael]

My Christmas presents are:
1) a T-shirt which says Sidi Bousaid سيدي بوصيد Tunisia تونيس (I'm gonna take a photo of it and send it to my Tunisian friends )
2) a 16 GB USB pen stick, with multilingual descriptions

New words
wasayt وسيط medium, device
takhzeyin تخزين storage

[Zireael]

End-of-year summary (something I forgot to do in 2013 )

Level started: A1+
Level ended: A1+ (aww, not much progress in terms of language level)
New words learned: roughly 40
Arabic-speaking friends made: 1 (FB), 1 (HTLAL)

Books used: leafed through Madinah a few times; got several others in PDF but they mostly cover A0-A1 range ((

[Zireael]

1st January happens to be Ashraf's birthday, so I wished him a happy birthday in Arabic.

In response, I got شكراُ جزبلاًand some New Year greetings.

New words
Saha صحة truth, correctness
Sa'idaسعادة happiness

***

Also, some Arabic satirical pictures in the wake of Charlie Hebdo attack: link

[Zireael]

Not much on the languages end of things - writing a term paper.

I was just checking sound streaming devices (think Oticon Streamer or Phonak iCom) but I don't think they are for me - five times as pricey as the Bluetooth loop and because they are constantly on and there are no replacement batteries, their lifetime is around two years, and once they die, you have to buy a new device. The only advantage they have over the induction loops is that you don't have to switch the hearing aid to the T setting - which has the side effect of crackling static when there's no input via the loop (and the static can't really be avoided, since it just picks up electromagnetic radiation all around).

Right now I'm testing a Blucom (some local Polish company) Bluetooth induction loop. The loop's pretty funny, since it's a mish-mash of a (local Polish company) M-Life ML-01 phone headset Bluetooth module and Blucom's only part is the loop itself. But they charge four times the headset's price lol.
I've had to install new Bluetooth drivers for my laptop because the old ones didn't support audio via Bluetooth. The new ones are spiffy, and on the way, I learned why Bluetooth is named so.
Apparently whoever invented the name liked Norse history and thought of the king who connected disparate tribes - Harald Bluetooth. The name stuck and now most BT devices flash blue and/or have a blue icon

BT in Arabic is supposedly بلوتوث according to Google.

[Zireael]

Read a Polish translation of a Spanish novel set in Al-Andalus.
Features Avenzoar and Averroes and Avicenna is mentioned, too. I bet you already noticed the common link to all those Latinized names - they all start with Av-. This made me wonder, since there is no Av- or even remotely close to it in the Arabic names ابن زهر, ابن رشد, ابن سینا .
And then I noticed a note on one of the Wikipedia pages (I think it was Avenzoar), that the name was first translated to Hebrew. Ibn became Aben, and from here it was easy to see Aben-Zohar becoming Avenzoar or Aben-Rois becoming Averroes (note: Spanish pronunciation of b and v is almost identical therefore the spelling change)

[Zireael]

Wrapping up the term paper.

The BT loop allows me to talk on the mobile phone even in noisy conditions, but the time to turn it on and connect is a bit too long (2 mins last time I tried).
The nice thing I found is that an app I use to save articles and web pages on my computer has a mobile version, and said mobile version has a TTS option. Now that I'm testing the loop, I discovered I can actually *understand* the TTS output without setting the mobile speaker to full volume and disturbing everyone around.

I didn't like the Google Spanish voice, so I started looking for other solutions. The free version of eSpeak (eyes-free) didn't want to work on my device, making me REALLY wary of trying the paid version. SVOX took some time to install, but has a free 2 week trial of any voice I want, and after that they're priced 4 euros each (nearly 10 złoty). I've also seen Acapela Voices app, but I don't know their price for voices (supposedly five euros, so slightly more, but I've used their on-line trial and liked it).

Any TTS recommendations? I'd love to get an app which has Arabic offered, so that I can actually get used to the sound of the language.

[Zireael]

17.01, Omar Sharif's (عمر الشريف) ex-wife Haten Hamama فاتن حمامة dies.
23.01, King Abdullah bin Abd' al-Aziz [of Saudi Arabia] dies and is succeeded by his half-brother Salman.

(Yes, I looked through the list of Hamama's roles on Wikipedia. As good a way to learn some new words as any)

New words & phrases
Manzil raqam 13 منزل رقم house number 13

Rosassa رصاصة bullet
Dunya دنيا world, universe
Malakملاك angel
Sitt ست lady
Sira' صراع struggle
al-hob الحب love
maw'ed موعدdate, appointment
hallan حلاًsolution
uridu أريد I want
tutf'تطفئ extinguish, put out
lahn لحنmelody
al-Dalem الظامtyrant
irham ارحم have pity on
dumu دموعtears
al-rimal الرمال the sands
tareeq طريقroad, way
waqt وقتtime
al-akheera الأخيرةlast, recent
mur مر bitter
hilw الحلو sweet (adj.)

Al-madi الماضي the past
ayyamna أيامنا our days
Al-yatimatain اليتيمتين orphans (fem. dual)
al-ahlam الأحلام dreams

Sharif شريف noble
Malaki ملكي royal
Kanisat كنيسة church, temple