New Arabic Contributor to the forum

As a native Arabic speaker, am proud to be a member of the Living Language team. I am here to help you learn to speak, read and write the language.

Some facts I would like to share about Arabic

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters and is written from right to the left.
The Arabic language has a vast abundance of words, which enables the language to reach a level of precision, which not many other Latin languages can match.
Arabic is a Semitic language, originating around modern Syria, making its way down the Arabian peninsula.
Arabic, is spoken by more than 200 million people worldwide.

If you have any inquiries and would like to know more about Arabic. Please ask!

Hadi K.

'ahlan Hadi,

I purchased the platinum package and I am very
excited to work on my Arabic. The tools that living language provide are
excellent and I believe will help me tremendously.

However, as a business man, my time is limited to after my working
hours to take advantage of the etutoring, however when I saw the time slot options
I was disappointed to see that for the orientation, most of the possibilities
are during the day(my working hours). I also checked lessons 3-5 and
noticed that it is during the office
working hours which makes it impossible for me to take advantage of this tool.

I would appreciate if there is a way to increase the
e-tutoring time slots after 6pm where people like me can benefit from it.

shukran

W.

Hi there! We can absolutely be flexible with the eTutor session scheduling. If there are particular times that are generally better for you, please send an email to [email protected]. Our eTutors give us their availability each month and we schedule sessions around that, but we can certainly reach out and ask if they can shuffle things around. We definitely want you to be able to take advantage of the eTutoring! (Just don't forget to give us the times in EST, or let us know what your time zone is.)

Shukran Christopher for your reply, I will email availability to the email above.

We got your email, and we're reaching out to the tutors right now. 'ilaa liqaa!

السلام عليكم يا هادي. من وين أنت؟

Ahlan!

a) What does 'ilaa liqaa mean?

b) I know our English numbers are called 'arabic numerals' but our letters don't look anything like Arabic letters. Did English only take the numbers?

Shokran jazilan,

-Monroe

'ilaa liqaa' means "see you soon." It's in one of the Go Further notes in Lesson 1 of Essential. (Those are easy to miss in the online course, but there's good information in them! Always look for the "Related Material" links on the right.)

There's also a culture note... somewhere... about Arabic numbers. I think it's Lesson 3 of Essential, in the Go Further associated with the Recap. Basically Arabic numbers are derived from India, and the numbers we use in English come from Arabic. As always, Wiki has something to say on this!

You mention the large vocabulary and level of prescision of the Arabic language. I often wonder when learning different terms which are given the same definitions whether or not there is a subtle difference in meaning or if the words are synonyms. For instance, كرسي و مقعد for chair, شباك و شرفة for window, and حديقة و بستان for garden. I believe all of these examples appear in our course materials. I wonder if you could tell us more about this topic and maybe give some common examples. Thanks.

Hi Carrot,

Thank you for a very good question about Arabic synonyms. To answer your question, I would have to delve into one of Arabic's main pillars, called المرادفات, al-muraadafaat, which translates into the Art of Synonyms.

Many Arabic words have two, sometimes three or even four synonyms. As an example for "al-muraadafaat" we have the adjective "new" which has 2 synonyms: جديد و حديث both of them have the same meaning and are used as an adjective in a lot of the lessons to come. Another example with 3 synonyms is the verb "to come": جاء, حضر,أتى and they all have the same meaning. Since it is Valentines today, the verb "to love" has also 3 synonyms: أحب، عشق، هوى....

You should always keep in mind that Arabic synonyms are a course by themselves; so I recommend that we look into them in more details after you are done with your Living Language books. At that time, I would recommend a book called "Using Arabic Synonyms" and it has like 90 words which have 4 or sometimes even 5 to 6 synonyms.

Just a quick note on your question, شُباك does mean window; while شُرفة means balcony.

have a good day, and keep those questions coming!

H,

Hi Hadi,

Thanks very much for a great and very interesting answer. I went back to double check the text about شرفة used as window because I was thought I'd read it there. On page 89 of Living Language Arabic Essential I found the following two sentences; هناك شرفة كبيرة في غرفة النوم (translated in the book as there is a large window in the bedroom) and الشرفة تطل على الحديقة (translated as the window looks out onto the garden.) Does شرفة mean both balcony and window? I will definitely buy the book you've suggested. It sounds very good. Thanks too for the new vocabulary and information on المرادفات. I really appreciate all the information.

Carrot

السلام عليكم

I wonder when the commas are to be used in Arabic language. I've noticed that often when listing things و is used after every word. Is that correct?

wa xalaikum as-salaam ya ilhisan,

As an answer to your question, let me introduce الفواصل (al-fawaSil, commas). In Arabic text, commas are the opposite to English ones, that is they look like 6s rather than 9s. The letter و means 'and', and should be used instead of and sometimes together with commas in lists (they are not just big commas!).

الفاصلة (،) is also used between different clauses in compound sentences, e.g.

أحب السفر كل صيف، ولكن هذا العام لن أسافر بسبب انشغالي بالدراسة.

“I like to travel every summer, but this year I will not travel for being busy with my study.”

It should be noted that we should not use a comma between basic parts of the sentence like the subject and the predicate, or the subject and the verb.

For any more questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

هادي

شكرا اوي ya ustaz Hadi

I am glad you asked this question Ilhisan, if you have any more, please do not hesitate to ask.

Just a small piece of information about اوي . As you already know, it means "much", it is a wildely used word in the middle east yet every country has a way of saying it.

In Lebanon/Syria it is said as "كتير" ktiir

in Kuwait it is said as " وايد" waayid

in Iraq it is said as "كثير" kthiir

in Egypt it is said as "اوي" 'awii

ممتاز

ilhisan, ممكن ان تكتبي جملة فيها فواصل (commas)?

Can you write a sentence that has commas?

ايل, كيفك؟

انا احب العربية, المانية, جزائر, مصر

i hope it's correct :)

Hi ilhisan,

The sentence is correct! Mumtaaz...

Ya Carrot wa ilhisan,

هل تُحبين السفر؟ الى اين تريدين ان تذهبي؟

hal tuHibbina as-safar? 'ilaa 'ayn turiidiin 'an taDHhabii?

Do you like to travel? Where do you want to go?

أحب السفر كثيراً
أريد أن أذحب في كل مكان

I hope I've said this right. :) Do I need إلى in there, or any other changes?
شكراً

ممتاز يا كاروت.. يجب ان تستعملى "الى" بدل "في" في الجملة..

God job Carrot, as you mentioned, it is better to you "ilaa" rather than using "fii" .

Do you have any country in particular you like to visit?

هل تريدين زيارة بلد معين؟

شكرا

لا أعرف
أريد أن أذهب إلى الأهرام في مصر وإلى بترا في الأردن
أريد أن أذهب إلى المواقع الأثرية التي رأيت على التلفزيون أيضاً
هي في العراق و العربية السعودية
في الحقيقة أريد أن أذحب إلى كل مكان
أي المكان الأفضل في لبنان؟

Sorry about the lack of punctuation here. It goes to the wrong end of the sentence
when I write in Arabic, so I just decided to do one sentence per line. I hope these make
sentences make sense. I am trying to look stuff up, but I'm sure I will need corrections.

شكرا جزيلا

Carrot, let me teach you a small trick when it comes to Arabic punctuation. If you write the sentence then the "comma" , it will jump to the beginning of the sentence but if you keep continuing the sentence, it will take the position where you placed it.

المواقع الأثرية موجودة كثيراً في الدول العربية. في لبنان اهم و اكبر معبد روماني خارج اوروبا و يسمى بعلبك او مدينة الشمس. هذا مقطع من ويكيبيديا.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baalbek

Thanks for the punctuation tip and the link. Baalbek looks really neat!
الآن أريد أن أذهب إلى بعلبك أيضاً

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