Arabic Language Blog

Jews mallow (ملوخية) is a traditional Egyptian dish that is very healthy and delicious. This is a leafy green plant with small yellow flowers that is used to prepare a very famous Egyptian dish.

We only need the leaves for the dish and they have to be chopped very finely. You can find it in the West in shops that sell Middle Eastern foods. You can buy it either frozen or dried. It can be prepared in the same way for either type.

Many people think that preparing Molukhia is hard, but in fact it is very easy. You need the following ingredients:

soup (meat or chichen)

1 onion

1 tomato (finely chopped) or a spoon of tomato paste

salt and pepper

This is how we prepare it.

Chop the onion and boil it with the chopped tomato or tomato paste in the soup. When it is half cooked, add the molukhia (either frozen or dried) and stir on very very low fire. Add salt and pepper as desired. Do not leave to boil for long. It needs to be thick to some extent, but you can add more soup as desired to make it thinner!

To add special extra flavor you can dice some onion and fry with dried coriander, then add it to the cooked molukhia!

You can eat it with rice, along with meat or chicken if you like.

   We have already read about Labor Day عيد العمال  but how did you do on its quiz ? Did you answer all the questions correctly ? Ok, today, I will present the answers to the Labor Day Quiz for you all to check your answers. To view the questions, go back to the quiz.

1) The Egyptians celebrate “Labor Day”  on May 1^st every year.

يــحــتــفــــل الــمــصـــريـــــون بـــعــيــــد الـــعــُــمــــّــــال فــى الأول مــن مــايــــو كــل عـــَـــام

2) Americans celebrate “Labor Day” on the first Monday in September.   

يــحــتـــفـــــل الأمـــريــكـــيــــون بــعـــيــــد الــعـــُــمــّـــال فــى الإثــنــيــــن الأول مــن شــهـــر ســبــتــمــبــــر

3) The slogan that the Chicago workers lifted up was; “Eight hours to work, eight hours to rest, eight hours to sleep.”

الــشـِـعـَــار الـذى كـان يـرفـعــه الـعــُـمــّــال فـى شـيـكــاغـو هو ” ثـمــان ســاعــات لـلــعــمــل , ثــمـــان ســاعــــات لـلــراحـــة و ثــمـــان ســاعــــات لـلــنــــوم

4) The American Labor Union Movement called for the first workers’ strike on May 1^st 1886 .

  الـذى دعـا لإضـراب الـعــُـمـّــال فـى الأول مـِـن مـايـو 1886 كـانــت هـى حـركـة إتـحــاد الـعـُـمــّـال الأمــريـكــي

5) Labor Day is celebrated by organizing street demonstrations and marches.

يــتــم الإحــتـفـــال بـــعـــيـــد الـــعـــُـمــّــال عــن طــريــق تــنــظــيــم الـمــُــظــاهــرات و الـمـسـيــرات فـى الـشــوارع

6) answer between brackets اخـتــر الإجـابـة الــصـحـيـحـة مـِـن بـيـن الأقــواس 

    a- Labor Day is an ( annual) vacation.

عــِــيــــدُ الــعـــُــمــّـــالِ هـــُــو عـــُــطــلــــة ……… (  ســنــويــّـــة 

   b- The U.S. Congress designated May 1^st as ( Loyalty ) Day.

                    اِعـتـبــرَ الـكـونـجــرس الأمـريـكـى الـيـوم الأول مـِـن مايـو هــو يـوم ….. ( الـوفـاء

   c- The person who said “Without labor, nothing prospers” is … ( Sophocles )

الـشـخــص الـذى قـال عــبــَـارة : ” لا شــيءَ يـنـجــح بــدون الــعــَـمـــل” هــُــو ….. ( سـوفــوكــلــيـــس

7) Translate the following sentence into Arabic: ترجـِم العـبـارة الـتـالـيـة إلى اللغــة العـربـيــة  

“The  Egyptian workers have made great efforts in the construction of the Suez Canal and the High Dam and had a long history of struggle for better conditions.”  

لـقــد بـذل الــعــُــمــّـــالُ الــمــصـــريــون جــُــهــُــوداً عــظــيــمـــة فــى بــنـــاءِ قــنـــاة الــســُــويــس و الــســــدِّ الــعــالـــى ، كــمـــا كـــان لــهــم كــِــفـــَـــاحٌ طــويــلٌ  مــِــن أجــْــلِ أحـــوالٍ أفــضـــــل

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Peace  ســلام /Salam/ 

A new Arabic Language charter was announced only a week ago to establish the UAE as a global “center of excellence” for the Arabic language, news outlets such as The National and GulfNews reported.

The language center will be based at Zayed University, to “revive Arabic as لغة العلـــــــوم والتكنولوجيــــــــــا (the language of sciences and technology)”.

The announcement was made at the opening session of the first Mohammed Bin Rashid Policies Council, a new channel of communications with the community and a platform for creative and innovative ideas.

“We have to be proud of our language and start to teach it to others,” said a student of Arabic literature at the same university.

“It will start from ourselves, not from others. Sheikh Mohammed gave us this charter but after that, what will we do with it? It will come down to the people to make use of it.”

UAE’s expats often have no clue about… UAE!

The new decision comes amid concerns that the UAE may have lost some of its local identity due to the incredible influx of مُهــــــــــاجرين (expats) over the past two decades.

Expats represent more than 80% of the UAE population. A February report indicated that seven out of ten expatriates in the UAE do not understand the country’s local عادات وتقــــــــــاليد (customs and traditions.) Only 60% of expats claim to know the basics of UAE culture, while 11%  confessed to not even bother learning.)

Expats receive Arabic lessons in UAE, free of charge!

Underlining the 2,000-year heritage of Arabic, Sheikh Mohammed said: “A focus on nurturing the language was important to uphold the Emirati national identity for الأجيـــــــــــال القــــــــادمـــــــة (future generations.)”

He said “the new initiative was in line with the UAE’s 2021 رُؤيـــــــــــــة / Vision 2021 that aims at all-round development while promoting national identity and cultural cohesiveness.”

“Our national identity is integrally linked to the Arabic language, which serves as an effective medium to express our values, culture and heritage. Promoting the language will enable our future generations to connect with our roots, society and values more effectively,” he said.

Other initiatives announced include the setting up of a dedicated educational facility at Zayed University to promote Arabic education for non-Arabic speakers, and establishing a Faculty of Translation at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Media College.

Dr Maher Bahloul, an associate professor of language and linguistics at the American University of Sharjah, said the first step towards popularising Arabic is to change the “archaic” rote-learning methods used to teach it.

He suggested that expatriates learn 500 Arabic words so that within three months they can communicate the basics. In the classroom, he recommends الأفـــلام (movies), المســــــــرح (theatre) and الأغـــــــــاني (songs.)

The initiative will focus on Standard Modern Arabic and target expatriates and Arabic-speakers alike. .

The announcement has also spurred a rise in teachers and business leaders asking for Arabic teachers at the Ministry of Culture and UAE University.

“As we say in Arabic, it’s like the soul has come back to the body, because language is very important for the level of the people, the level of the identity, مُستــــــــــوى الحضـــــــــــارة (the level of civilization),” said the chairman of the department of Arabic language and literature.