Arabic Study Group

[eskandar]

يبدأ اليوم كل صباح بالاستقام في الساعة السادسة صباحا
ثم اخرج و اتفقد النحل. و مع انتجه من عسل
بعدها اذهب الى مزارع العنب لاتفقد المحصول
في نهاية اليوم بعد العمل اذهب للقاء اصدقائي لنقضي معا بعد الوقت

ِAlso, in the first line of my transcript, why does he say يبدأ اليومِ with the kasra ending on اليوم? Isn't it supposed to be the nominative case, i.e. the day starts?

I'm also unsure about why اليوم sounds like it has a kasra.

He immediately liked people because of their positiveness (ايجابي).

I think he says he wanted to be a positive person for society - حبيت اني (ا)كون انسان ايجابي لهذا المجمتع or something like that.

And when the reporter starts speaking in MSA, I get lost. Antea help me out, what does the reporter say?

The MSA voiceover starting at about 1:34 says:

احمد اول شخص غير هلندية ؟ هذة الجائزة علی الاطلاق في بلدية نيو (فلان). هذه جائزة مهمة جدا لان هناك عددا كبيرا من المتطوعين الجديدين المرشحين لنيلها. و من خلال ؟ المعاملة؟ ؟ عام مئة ؟ المتطوعي المتميز

[voron]

Thanks Eskandar for your answers! And in the video with the Saudi guy, do you know what dialect they all speak? Is it Saudi?

[eskandar]

No problem! And I assume so, it's a Saudi TV show and a Saudi guest, but I wouldn't be able to distinguish a Saudi dialect from, say, Emirati or Qatari.

[vijayjohn]

I did the second exercise as well:

► Show Spoiler

٢
٤
٣
١

I'm afraid I don't know of anything I really have to contribute to the audio-related stuff at this point...

[Antea]

Yes, thanks for your answers Eskandar! I was not able to come before, and your level is better than mine (according to my teacher I am in B2. In Unilang B2 level has 3 stars, just like C1, but of course it’s not the same).

Here goes another little video, this time they speak about the heat wave in France, temperatures, etc. I will post here some little videos not very hard to understand, and the longest ones I will post them in my TAC, in order to not monopolise the study thread.

https://youtu.be/3JU84U_gKpQ

[Antea]

I think I’m going to monopolise the thread, after all

https://youtu.be/QZdBFERXVQA

[vijayjohn]

Oh no, you don't! Because I moved on to the first exercise voron did wait no, voron did Exercise 2 in this section...I think. I did Exercise 1 without even looking at the instructions.

► Show Spoiler

١- ألم د - آلام
٢ - طبيب ه - أطبة
٣ - دواء ب - أدوية
٤ - مرض أ - أمراض
٥ - شيء ج - أشياء

Do you have any idea what's being said at the very beginning of the first video you posted in this thread, Antea? Does it begin mid-word or something? Because my best effort to transcribe it is:

دلة سعيد أن إنسان أحد المثابرة و أي شي في مغامرة

which looks like gibberish, not Arabic!

[Antea]

I have found the commercial (this one doesn’t begin mid-word), so maybe the beginning it’s easier to understand.
https://youtu.be/ikWbAcTV7JI

[Antea]

Anyway, he says something like that:

اهلًا، معك إبدالله سعيد، أنا إنسان أحب المغامرة و اي شيء في المغامرة ممكن أن يكون توقع في حياتك

In min. 0:12 there are two words that I only can guess (like something with الحس sense , and the other one, I don’t identify it). It’s difficult to catch all the words.

[vijayjohn]

Thanks, Antea! I still hear المثابرة for the first one (أحب المثابرة). It also sounds to me like he said معك مع إبدالله سعيد. If I'm right, I guess that means something like 'Hi, you're with Abdullah Said. I'm a person who loves persevering, and you can experience any adventure in your life'.

Well, that's my attempt at understanding it, anyway.

Also, I finally tried out the first exercise voron actually did.

► Show Spoiler

.١ - شعر بالم في رأسه He felt a headache.
.٢ - أشترى العسل من السوق He bought honey from the market.
.٣ - شفى الله المريض God cured/healed the sick person.
.٤ - أخذ الدواء بعد الغداء He took the medicine after dinner.
.٥ - تناول هدية من صديقه She was handed a gift from his friend.

let Allah cure

Wouldn't that be يشف الله...?

after lunch

Oh yeah, I forgot that غداء is lunch, not dinner! (And Wiktionary says it's also breakfast? ).

AFAICT, تناول means 'she was handed over', and أخذ means 'he took'.

[eskandar]

It also sounds to me like he said معك مع إبدالله سعيد.

Doesn't make grammatical sense in Arabic. I think you're just hearing the ع in عبد الله (not إبد‌الله, you guys!) AFAICT Antea's transcription was correct, minus the spelling error.

If I'm right, I guess that means something like 'Hi, you're with Abdullah Said. I'm a person who loves persevering, and you can experience any adventure in your life'.

I think it says "I'm a person who loves adventure, and in adventure, anything can be expected in your life" (ie. anything can happen?)

AFAICT, تناول means 'she was handed over', and أخذ means 'he took'.

Maybe it could go either way, but I'd choose voron's answers. تُناول means "she was handed over" but تَناول means "he ate" and is also the verb used for taking medicine, vitamins, etc.

[Antea]

Sorry for the misspelling I am obviously better at listening than at writing.

Here is another video. This one is aprox. 13 min, and of course no need to transcribe it all, or even to watch it all. But I think it's not very difficult to understand, and vocabulary is Ok

https://youtu.be/dr2iOgQGqZ4

[voron]

let Allah cure

Wouldn't that be يشف الله...?

The perfect verb form is ubiquitously used in MSA as optative. I am pretty sure I saw it somewhere in a grammar book but I can't find it at the moment. Here are Wordreference links:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... e.1743893/
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... e.3108415/

So I think both translations are valid, yours and mine.
(Except that I should have used 'may' in English, not 'let').

Antea, you know what, I've started watching short videos in Arabic, too. Here's one from me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJMStUg9JuU

In this video, a Russian host of RT tells a bit about her experience learning Arabic.

[Antea]

That’s great! I think it’s better if more people post some videos, so we can have more variety

[eskandar]

I watched this short news clip about Djibouti today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y-1_tVX5H4

[Antea]

Short video about Volubilis, in Morocco.

https://youtu.be/lzQ11VJSlCQ

[voron]

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.

[voron]

In this video, a Russian host of RT tells a bit about her experience learning Arabic.

So, it was easy to understand because of animations that accompany her explanations. I liked the part where she says:
- When I speak fusha, my friends ask me: What time do you live in? (في اي زمن تعيشين؟) Nobody speaks this way, except for cartoon characters. (شخصيات الكرتون)

[voron]

My next exercise from the book.

Chapter 1, Lesson 2, text زينب و مريم صديقتان
Think about answers to the following questions.

► Show Spoiler

1 - ماذا تفعل اذا اردت ان تكون نحيفا؟ اكل اقلّ و افعل رياضة مثل الركض او السباحة.
2 - ماذا تفعل اذا اردت أن تكون سمينا؟ اكل اكبر (ولكن يجد الأكل يكون صحيح!), و افعل رياضة لزيادة العضلات.
3 - ايهما تفضل ان تكون نحيفا ام سمينا؟ - افضل ان اكون نحيفا.
4 - ما الطعام الذي تأكله كثيرا؟ - اكل ثمر كثيرا مثل تين او عنب.

[Antea]

I’m not able to differentiate and identify the differents dialects, except for the Egyptian dialect that I recognise quite well because it’s the one I’m studying (and the most difficult to understand, in my opinion ).