Translation "Ana Mneeh" By: Mashroua Laila

قوم نحرق هالمدينه ونعمّر وحده أشرف

"Come on let’s burn this city, and build a more honorable one.”

قوم – Literally “Get Up” (translated as “Come on”)

عمّر – To build

أشرف – Superlative of شرف - Honor

قوم ننسى هالزمان ونحلم زمن ألطف

“Come on let’s forget these times and dream of better ones.”

حلم زمن – dream of a time (notice that they do not include the ب as would be used in MSA)

Translators Note: I translated زمن as “times” because that is how we would express the idea in English.

ألطف- Superlative of لطيف – literally “agreeable” , “ pleasant”

ما زالك بلا شي ما فيك تخسر شي

“You’ve still got nothing, you can’t lose anything.”

ما زال – To remain in a state (state of being, not one of the 50 states)

وانا ملّيت من عشرة نفسي

“And I’ve grown tired of my life.”

This was a difficult translation and I don’t love the one that I’ve got. The explanation follows and should give more context.

مليت – literally “bored” or “become bored”

عشرة نفسي – الحياة مع نفسي  this is a phrase that literally means “life with one’s self” but could be translated as my life.

The above phrase و انا مليت من عشرة نفسي is a phrase that basically means to be frustrated (محبط) with one’s life to an extreme degree, hence the above translation.

كان بدي غيّر العالم مش عارف كيف العالم غيّرني

“I wanted to change the world, not knowing how much the world had changed me.”

كان بدي – I had wanted – This is a good example of how to say you wanted something in the past in Levantine Arabic. It is especially useful when trying to explain to someone that you have changed your mind (غيرت رأي ).

على سبيل المثال : انا كان بدي اركب هدا الجمل بس الريحة تبعو خوفني

“I wanted to ride that camel but its smell scared me away.”

غيّر – to change – Measure II (If you have not yet learned the measures disregard this; but also go learn them. They can change your Arabic learning life.)

كان بدي احمل السما وهلق انجق حامل نفسي

“I wanted to carry the sky, now I can barely carry myself.”

انجق – Levantine – to accomplish a task with difficulty

قول انّي منيح

“Say that I’m okay.”

قول انّي منيح...

“Say that I’m Okay.”

Al-Kitaab Grammar II

Subject Pronouns in Arabic  - الضَمائِر

We         نَحْنُ	I        أنا
You (Plural) أنتُم	You (Male)أنتَ                                               You (Female)أنتِ
They  هُم	He/it (Male)هُوَ                                             She/it (Male) هِيَ

The list above does not include the dual pronouns.

Arabic has three types of personal pronouns: Subject, Object and Possessive.

The list above contains the most commonly used subject pronouns.

Note: English Grammar Review

Subject Pronoun: I as in “I ate a shark.”

Object Pronoun: Me as in “A shark at me.”

Possessive Pronoun: My as in “My pet shark ate my friend.”

 Plural – الجمع

Plurals in Arabic are something that almost every student has a difficult time with. In English there is one regular plural pattern (adding an S) with a few exceptions (children; or as my aunt says chillins). Arabic on the other hand has over ten plural patterns. Personally I don’t think that it is possible or even beneficial to memorize these “formulas,” but that could just be me being lazy. I remember being very frustrated with pluralization (btw I like inventing words) when I first started Arabic. However, I no longer really have to think about it. I do not have the patterns memorized (ie I couldn’t write them out on a blank sheet of paper) but I do have a sense feel for them and I have gotten pretty good at guessing. Once again my advice to new students is to expose themselves to as much Arabic as possible (from Native speakers or highly fluent non-native speakers) and to really listen.

The first way that we distinguish between plurals in Arabic is by defining nouns as either Human Plurals (ie humans) or Non-Human Plurals (ie everything else). This distinction is important not because there is a difference in the patterns but because the agreement rules differ. As I have mentioned in an earlier post (perhaps; maybe not) in Arabic, nouns must agree with their adjectives in number and gender.

Human Plurals

 Human Sound Masculine Plurals – جمع مذكر : ون/ين

Human Sound Feminine Plurals – جمع مؤنث: ات

Broken Plurals – جمع تكسير

Unlike the first too examples these plurals do not follow a set pattern this is where you simply must memorize expose yourself to enough Arabic until you can begin to get a feel for these patterns.

Note: If in a crunch situation and you do not know a broken plural just use the sound masculine or feminine form. For example if you wanted to say students and didn’t know that the plural of طالب  is طلاب you could get away with saying طالبون, you would be wrong but native speaker would most likely understand you and quite possibly correct you.

Non-Human Plural Agreement

As I said earlier the main reason for distinguishing between Human and Non-human plurals is because the agreement rules differ (agreement rules: agreement between nouns and their adjectives in number and gender).

The principle rule for non human plurals is that they are always treated as singular feminine. This is a rule that simply must be memorized and the best way to do that is to speak with a native speaker who will correct you when you make mistakes.

Examples:

هذه الدينوصورات جوعانة : These Dinosaurs are hungry!!!

وجبات الكفتيريا مقرفة! : The cafeteria’s meals are disgusting!!

الجملة الاسمية – The Nominal Sentence

Any sentence that begins with a noun (اسم in grammar terminology) is a جملة اسمية.

Nominal sentences are made up of a مُبتَدَأ (subject) and a خَبَر ( predicate). The predicate can be a noun, adjective, verb, prepositional phrase etc.

Examples:

الدينوصور يسكن في بيت كبير  -The dinosaur lives in a big house.

مبتدأ – الدينوصور

خبر -  يسكن في بيت كبير

As you can see this sentence has a verb in it. It is still considered a nominal sentence with the predicate made up of a prepositional phrase.

نو ارلينس مدينة كريهة – New Orleans is a stinky city.

مبتدأ – نو ارلينس

خبر – مدينة كريهة

You may be asking yourself where the “is a” is located in the Arabic sentence. There is no “to be” verb (am/is/are) in the Nominal Arabic Sentence. It is simply understood. The trick is to be able to identify the خبر  and the مبتدا ( not necessarily in that order). The to be verb would be between the two.

Linguistic Diversity in Arabic

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to the following article from the economist.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/06/arabic?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Fbl%2Farmiesandnavies

In the article the author discusses an issue all too familiar to students of Arabic; linguistic diversity. The author points out that what we call "Arabic" today is really a conglomeration of regional "dialects" (or perhaps separate languages) tied together by a common "literary Arabic" which is a modernized version of the classical Arabic of the Quran. The author argues that what we call "Arabic dialects" are quite possibly different languages, the linguistic similarity between them being closer to that of French and Italian than Manchester and London English.

Of course in a short blog post the author would be hard pressed to discuss this issue with the proper shades of complexity and the argument he makes is one echoed quite often by frustrated students of Arabic. I myself used to subscribe to a similar line of thinking. However, my opinion on the subject has taken a shift recently.

After spending time in Jordan and Egypt I am currently studying in Morocco. Like many Moroccans (and also similar to many people from my home state of Mississippi), my host family's life revolves around day time television. Moroccan TV is a constant flow of soap operas from India, Turkey and Mexico. The programs are dubbed into Arabic for my family's viewing pleasure. The previous norm was to dub these shows into standard Arabic (making for some quite awkward romance scenes; ie "انا احبكِ كثيراً يا ماريا", " و انت كذلك يا جون").

Recently, however, channels have begun dubbing these programs into dialects with the trend being Syrian. This means that in a given day my Moroccan host family will probably view Adil Imam in an Egyptian comedy followed by a Turkish mafia film dubbed in Syrian and then a Mexican soap opera dubbed in MSA (Modern Standard Arabic).

Despite never studying any of these dialects my family can easily understand them with little difficulty and no Google translate. It is true that many Arabs from the Mashriq (i.e. Egypt, the Levant and the Gulf) would have difficulty understanding Algerian or Moroccan soap operas (not that they are missing much any way). I would argue that this is because they simply are not exposed to these dialects. I have met Egyptians living in Morocco who have told me that while Moroccan Arabic was difficult at first, after a few months they were able to communicate and understand with ease. I doubt the same could be said for Italians living in France.

Al- Kitaab 1 Grammar Lesson 1

المُؤَنّث  - Female

المُذَكَّر – Male

Unlike English (and similar to many other languages) Arabic differentiates between masculine and feminine nouns. With nouns this distinction is important because masculine nouns must have masculine adjectives and vice versa. When it comes to people this distinction is relatively easy (assuming you know the difference between a Man and a Woman; if you don’t, stop studying Arabic immediately and go ask your parents for the “birds and bees” speech). Where differentiating between male and female can be difficult is when it comes to inanimate objects and animals. Like many things in Arabic (and life) there is no hard and fast rule to determine whether a particular word is masculine or feminine. One “rule of thumb” to follow is that words with a ة at the end are almost always female (the exceptions are some classical Arabic words such as (خليفة. However, we cannot determine that a word is masculine simply because it does not have a ة. One example is the word حرب, which is feminine; my only guess is that some early grammarian had marital issues. The only reliable way to know whether a word is masculine or feminine is to pay attention to the way in which native speakers use them. The more Arabic study you get under your belt the more you will realize that there is simply no substitute for listening.

ال  - The Definite Article

The definite article in Arabic is represented by the ال which is the equivalent to THE English. One place where this is a very important concept to understand is when it comes to the names of God (there are a lot of them). There is a very big difference between الكبير and كبير or الكريم and كريم.

Sometimes in English we do not use “the” when it is generally understood which noun is being referred to. For example we may say “I am going to school”, in this statement it is understood to which school I am going. However, if I were to say انا سأذهب إلى مدرسة then I am literally saying “I am going to a school.” A general rule of thumb for this and other rules is that Arabic is an explicit language; meaning that it generally requires a higher degree of clarity as to what you are referring.

Note: Arabic is an “explicit language”

النِسبة

Egypt – Egyptian

مصر  - مصري

Done.

To nisbat-ize any noun 1) Remove ال , ة  and the final ى  then 2) add ي for مذكر or ية  for مؤنث.

السؤال

Asking questions is very important. When you visit an Arabic speaking country you will be asking many questions. Where is the bathroom? Why is that camel staring at me? Where is the bacon? (answer there is none) Where is the bathroom? Etc.

Luckily, asking questions in Arabic is generally simple. Also, once you’ve learned how to ask questions you can tackle all kinds of challenges like finding Mcdonalds, asking people their names and asking which camel is more likely to bite you. Learning how to ask questions is half the journey, then you just have to learn how to understand peoples’ answers (note: the second part of the journey is much, much longer).

1)      Yes/No questions

هل؟

In formal Arabic yes/no questions are formed using the article هل, as in هل هذا مسمَم؟ “Is this poisoned? (I told you this stuff was important).

Rising Intonation

As in most languages rising intonation in Arabic indicates a question and this is the method used in spoken Arabic.

2)      Information Questions

For questions that require more in depth answers than yes/ no (which it turns out is a lot of questions) the following words may come in handy.  I’ve included the استفهامات for MSA as well as the dialects the I know.

MSA

ما؟ - What (with nouns) ie “What is this? ما هذا؟

ماذا؟ - What (Verbs) ie “What are you doing?” ماذا تفعل؟

أيّ؟ - Which

مَن؟ -Who

أينَ؟ -Where

كيفَ؟ - How

الدارجة المغربية:

شنو / اش؟- What. Note: There is no distinction between what for nouns and verbs in dialect.

اشمن؟ - Which

شكون؟ - Who

فين؟ - Where

كيفاش؟ - How

اللهجة الشامية:

شو/ اش؟ - What

اي/ انو؟ - Which

مين؟ - Who

وين؟ - Where

كِيف؟ How

اللهجة المصرية:

ايه؟ - What

اي؟ - Which

مين؟ - who

فين؟ - Where

زي؟ - How

حروف جر  - prepositions commonly used in questions

مع  -With

في  - in

من – from

Note: Prepositions come before the question word in Arabic

في اي مدينة تسكن؟

من اين انت؟

مع من تدرس؟

Translation Troubles

!!!!!اهلا وسهلا و مرحبا بكم

For Arabic Soup's first blog post I thought it would be appropriate to present a video highlighting a common condition for students of Arabic, being lost in translation. The video below is from the comedy group N2O. You can see more of their videos here http://www.youtube.com/user/N2OComedy?feature=watch . 

I have taken some of the key vocabulary and phrases and given translations and short explanations. 

Enjoy!!

For those of you unfamiliar with Levantine or Jordanian Arabic this video may be a little tough. Especially since it is dealing with humor which is usually one of the more difficult aspects of a foreign language to grasp. However, even beginning and intermediate level students can benefit from hearing Arabic the way it is actually spoken and by picking up a few new phrases. 

صفات اللهجة الشامية - Characteristics of Levantine Arabic

 ,to laugh  بضحك , to go ب- مثل بروح,

In Levantine Arabic ب before a present tense verb represents an action that is done regularly. As in I eat Ramen noodles (everyday) or I go to the gym (every friday). It does not specify how often the action takes place but just that it happens regularly. There is another marker عم  that represents an action taking place right now. 

0:54 شاطر –  Clever (In Levantine Arabic)

1:00 عرض علي-  “To Offer “; This is the first time I’ve heard this word used in this particular way. In MSA it means to present somethine (I.E. to make seen)

1:16  صار له عشرة سنين هون  - - “He has been here 10 years”; In MSA صار means to become -One of اخوات  - كان, however in Levantine صار has many meanings. When used with ل it means “to have spent x amount of time. EX. قديش صار لك هون – How long have you been here?

1:18 زي في بيض في طمه - - “Like he has eggs in his mouth.”

زي- مثل  Levantine

طم- فم  Levantine

1:48 احتل – to occupy (i.e. militarily)

1:50 – بشتكو  - complaining

1:55 – 2:15

 عزم  - to host (i.e. to treat s.o. to)

 معزوم – to be treated to (اسم المعفعول)

 مرفوض – Literally- refused (M. “unacceptable)

  فظع – Literally- Horrible, (In Jordan people may yell فظع  when they are going to fight s.o; i.e. When you hear this word it may be time to find a new hangout, or get out your camera. )

  على عيونكLiterally On your eyes (M. “I got you”)

3:02 –بكون يشبه زرافة  - looks like a giraffe

شبه  - To Resemble

3:08 – عملنا ألم و وجع رأس  - Cause pain and headaches

عمل – (Also) To cause (Literally – “Make for us”) Levantine

3:38 – هاذ برت ركّز فيه – “Pay attention to this part”

4:48 –لابس نفس البوط   - “Always wears the same shoes”

بوط  - Shoes. Levantine

5:10- ما في داعي  - “there is no need to”

داعي   -Literally a caller; In Levantine- a need

Note: I’ve only ever heard this used as ما في داعي and never as عندي داعي

5:11- يضربو كفين L. Hit him with two hands ( M. Beat him up)

5:17 – دوار- Publice Circle (in Amman)

5:20 – الله يستر- May god Protect

5:30 حضر – To watch i.e a film, soccer match, ballet (Jordanian)