Arabic Study Group

[eskandar]

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2 - ماذا تفعل اذا اردت أن تكون سمينا؟ اكل اكثر (ولكن يجد الأكل ان يكون صحي!), و افعل رياضة لزيادة العضلات.

[voron]

2 - اكل اكثر

I don't know why I wrote اكبر - I think I just calqued from Russian (where 'more' and 'bigger' are the same word).

I read the text and did all the exercises from Lesson 2 mentally, so I'm moving on to Lesson 3. There is an interesting word in the dialog:
أعتقد أنك لم تتّبع الحمية -- I think you didn't follow the diet.

At first I thought: why is there a shadda in تتّبع ? The word 'to follow' is تبع without the shadda. Then I checked the dictionary:
اِتَّبَعَ، يَتَّبِع، الاِتّباع - to follow (ه = s.th.) (in an abstract way, e.g. to follow/obey a belief, custom, instructions, or rule)

[voron]

Unit 1, Lesson 3, Exercise 2 - Answer the questions

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1 - لماذا قابل المريض الطبيب؟ لان كان ضغطه مرتفع و سكريته ايضا
2 - ماذا قال له الطبيب؟ قال الطبيب ان الدواء وحده لا يوكفي, و يجيد ان المريض يمارس الرياضة و يتعب الحمية ايضا
3 - لماذا لم يمارس المريض الرياضة؟ لانه مشغول دائما.
4 - ماذا تناول المريض كثيرا؟ تناول المريض كثيرا من السكريات و نشويات.
6 - متى سيقابل المريض الطبيب؟ المريض الان حاله طيب و سيقابل الطبيب بعد ستة اشهر فقط.

(I skipped sentence 5 because it was essentially the same as one of the previous ones).

An interesting expression:
لا بُدّ من الرياضة - don't escape from sports

(Also a random rant: mixing right-to-left and left-to-right writing directions in the same line is such a pain in the ass -- especially with the BB formatting tags )

[eskandar]

لا بُدّ من الرياضة - don't escape from sports

It's more like "there's no escape from sports" or in other words "sports is a must / sports is unavoidable." لابدّ is one of the most common ways to express "must" in Arabic. There's also لا مفرّ (من)۔ , also literally meaning "there's no escape from."

[voron]

It's more like "there's no escape from sports" or in other words "sports is a must / sports is unavoidable."

So بد is not a verb in the imperative? What part of speech is it?

[eskandar]

It's a noun: budd "way out, escape". In this case it's manSuub since it's preceded by laa, giving us laa budda or la mafarra.

[voron]

I've moved on to reading the text from Lesson 4.

A reminder to myself about verb forms. Forms 2,3,4 get damma as the first vowel in the present tense. Examples from the book:
يُحَذِّر - he warns (form 2)
يُناقِش - he debates (form 3)
No examples of form 4 in the book; it's the one that starts with أ, so for example أكتب is 'to make write', 'to dictate', and 'he dictates' is يُكْتِب with the damma.

I always use this web page as a quick reference for verb forms: https://arabic.desert-sky.net/g_vforms.html

[vijayjohn]

Omg I'm soooo behind

[Antea]

Just some videos in different dialects.

This one, is from Morocco. The program is in Fusha, but when they interview the people in the street they use the dialect.

https://youtu.be/Zw-N_fyb6f0

And this one, is from Lebanon. Also, the interviewed people speak in the dialect, I suppose Levantine

https://youtu.be/9eULcwQqqIo

[vijayjohn]

Remember the first video Antea posted? Is it possible that it begins like this:

اهلًا، معكم عبد الله سعيد، أنا إنسان أحب المغامرة و اي شيء في المغامرة ممكن يكون في توقع على حياتك

and then continues with هذا شيء? Urgh, why are y'all so advanced in this language?! Jk it's because I study every language and haven't just focused on Arabic for very long.

Also, I'm actually trying to do all the exercises in this textbook, so I tried one more. Yes, I'm still very much on Chapter 1.

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.١ - المدينة بعيدة عن البيت
.٢ - أذهب إلى العمل بالسيارة
.٣ - أدرس ست حصص في اليوم
.٤ - أذهب إلى المكتبة الآن
.٥ - استيقطت من النوم مبكرا
.٦ - ذهب محمد إلى مكة للعمرة

[voron]

و اي شيء في المغامرة

I hear و أعيش شي في مغامرة ,
but I'm not at all sure about its correctness.

.٥ - استيقطت من النوم مبكرا

استيقظت

[n8an]

https://youtu.be/FezHfOAZiGg

This is indeed a Saudi dialect!

Other than the accent, there are a few words which give it away. There are 3 main Saudi dialects - Najdi, Khaleeji and Hejazi. This doesn't sound Hejazi at all, but I'll check with my Saudi friend since I'm a bit ignorant about Saudi dialects.

Edit: My friend says it's closest to Najdi but not as strong, so he's using a kind of mixed general "Saudi" dialect that sounds a bit more neutral (sometimes called a "white" dialect, though that generally refers to a generalised Khaleeji variant not specific to Saudi). My friend agrees that it's really, really not Hejazi and also not Khaleeji.

A video about Damascus, with English subtitles (not so short, 19 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb6fIQPAkEE

The dialect the presenter speaks sounds Levantine, but then he says he never visited Damascus before, so maybe he's not Syrian but Lebanese or Jordanian? Or maybe he's Syrian but lives abroad, I'm not sure, I can't confidently tell Levantine dialects apart.

EDIT: I asked my Syrian friend and he said it's Palestinian.

Yup, I only watched it for about 10 seconds but I can almost definitely tell it's Palestinian or Jordanian (I can't really tell much about Jordanian since I haven't heard it enough, but it bears strong similarities to some of the Palestinian dialects).

Simple things which give it away are use of "had" (Lebanese usually use "hayda"), the pronunciation of كل as "kol" (Lebanese and Syrians usually pronounce it as "kil" or "kel"), his use of "fi" (Lebanese and Syrians use "bi") and lots of other things related to the accent itself.

Lebanese say "baddeh" for (I want), but Palestinians and I think Jordanians say "biddi" or "baddi". This guy says "biddi". The pronunciation of the first and second (m) past tense of verbs is also quite different between Lebanese and Palestinian/Jordanian; where the Palestinian seems to say, for example, "3amalt", the Lebanese says "3milet" etc.

"Levantine" dialects really can be quite distinct, despite their overall similarities. If you compare Gaza to Hassakah to Zahle to Jerusalem to Beirut, you can really hear strong differences.

The same goes for "Gulf" dialects, despite the homogenisation going on over there and the fact that most Khaleeji songs are sung in the "white dialect" - a kind of Gulf creole - and not in the actual dialect spoken by the singers.

Just some videos in different dialects.

This one, is from Morocco. The program is in Fusha, but when they interview the people in the street they use the dialect.

https://youtu.be/Zw-N_fyb6f0

And this one, is from Lebanon. Also, the interviewed people speak in the dialect, I suppose Levantine

https://youtu.be/9eULcwQqqIo

The first video is in a Moroccan dialect (the interviews) - not understandable

The second video is a very Lebanese dialect. You couldn't mistake this one for Jordanian or Palestinian

[vijayjohn]

Thanks to both of you!

I attempted the next exercise, which requires listening to the next dialogue (not transcribed in the book, at the end of the first audio file just before the questions are read out from the book):

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.١ - خطأ: يريد المشتري العسل، لأنه يشعر بألم في معدته
٢ - صحيح
٣ - صحيح
.٤ - خطأ: طلب البائح من المشتري مية ريال
٥ - صحيح

[Saim]

I want to join yous but I'm not sure where to start.

[Antea]

Just come aboard

[voron]

I want to join yous but I'm not sure where to start.

If you want to do a book, just suggest one -- and I'll see if I want to do it, too. Or you can join me and Vijay in doing Al-3arabiyya bayna yadayk -- the book that I mentioned in the first post of this thread. We haven't progressed far yet: we're still on Unit 1.

[Saim]

If you want to do a book, just suggest one -- and I'll see if I want to do it, too. Or you can join me and Vijay in doing Al-3arabiyya bayna yadayk -- the book that I mentioned in the first post of this thread. We haven't progressed far yet: we're still on Unit 1.

Isn't that book a bit basic?

I dunno, I'm kind of more keen on looking at native or graded material. Speaking of which, I have four issues of this French graded magazine for Arabic learners, if anyone's interested:

[voron]

Isn't that book a bit basic?

Level 2? Nah, it's alright for me. My MSA skills are poor, I lack a lot of basic vocabulary.

You generally like books which are used at language courses in the country where the language is spoken, no? (Like your Turkish and Hungarian books). Why don't you use one for Arabic (not necessarily Bayna yadayk)?

[Saim]

Isn't that book a bit basic?

Level 2? Nah, it's alright for me. My MSA skills are poor, I lack a lot of basic vocabulary.

You generally like books which are used at language courses in the country where the language is spoken, no? (Like your Turkish and Hungarian books). Why don't you use one for Arabic (not necessarily Bayna yadayk)?

Oh, I thought you meant the first book. OK, I'm down.

[vijayjohn]

Darn, wouldn't you know it, I'm too late. Or am I?

Saim Bhai, if you'd prefer, we can go through the Syrian Colloquial book again instead. Or in addition. (I intend to keep doing the other book I've been doing with voron no matter what, though).