Archive for the year 2010
Arab Cartoons Posted by aziza on Apr 27, 2010
Cartoons (الكاريكاتير) are a very important feature of Arab newspapers (الصحف) and magazines (المجلات). They appear in each and every issue in a large number of publications. They are not always used for entertainment; instead, they are used to criticize political, economic and social conditions. They include very little or no text, but the meaning…
Iraqi Cuisine Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 26, 2010
A brief description of my first experience with Iraqi food.
Passive in Arabic – part 2 Posted by aziza on Apr 25, 2010
In English, it is not uncommon to express the agent of the passivized action using a by-phrase, e.g. “this book was written by a famous author”. In Arabic, the passive construction is used mostly without the by-phrase and the agent remains unknown. When we need to use the by-phrase in Arabic, we use the expression…
Passive in Arabic – part 1 Posted by aziza on Apr 20, 2010
The passive (المبني للمجهول) form is very important and interesting. It involves changing the form and the meaning of sentences to a certain extent. In passive constructions, the object of the active sentence becomes a grammatical subject, e.g. ‘my friend wrote the book’ is an active sentence that begins with the subject. Its passive counterpart…
European Country names in Arabic Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 18, 2010
The names of European countries in Arabic.
Cairo initiative to repatriate stolen artifacts Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 17, 2010
Egyptian lead initiative to repatriate stolen archeological artifacts.
Arabic Prepositions: to and on/about Posted by aziza on Apr 15, 2010
In this post, I give some notes about the form and the use of two prepositions (إلى) and (على). The literal meaning of (إلى) is ‘to’, and it is used in expressions like (أذهب إلى عملي) ‘I go to my work’ and (إلى من يهمه الأمر) ‘to whom it may concern’, etc. It should be…