Archive for September, 2011
Listening comprehension exercise Posted by aziza on Sep 25, 2011
Listen to the clip below and answer the questions below. You can use the translated words below. قدرت = estimated مصلحة الإحصاءات العامة والمعلومات = Department of Statistics and Information إرتفاع = rise سكان = population الاحصاء السكاني = census إجمالي = total محللون = analysts توفير = making available الوظائف = jobs المساكن =…
Arabic Prepositions (Part 2) حروف الجر Posted by Fisal on Sep 23, 2011
Prepositions are very important words in any language. Today, we are going to learn the Arabic prepositions and their meanings. Arabic preposition particles are Mabni words كلمات مبنية which means that they mostly have a fixed pronunciation regardless of their position in the sentence. These words also inflect the noun that follows them and cause…
Arabic Prepositions (Part 1) حروف الجر Posted by Fisal on Sep 21, 2011
Prepositions are very important words in any language. Today, we are going to learn the Arabic prepositions and their meanings. Arabic prepositions are Mabni words كلمات مبنية which means that they mostly have a fixed pronunciation regardless of their position in the sentence. These nouns also inflect the noun that follows them and cause it to end…
Dabke Posted by aziza on Sep 20, 2011
Dabke (دبكة) is an Arabic folk dance. It is popular in Palestinian Territories and several Arab countries such as Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. A line dance, it is widely performed at weddings and joyous occasions. The leader of the dabke heads the line, alternating between facing the audience and the other dancers. Dabke in…
Bibliotheca Alexandrina مكتبة الإسكندرية Posted by Fisal on Sep 19, 2011
The Library of Alexandria مكتبة الإسكندرية /Maktabat Al-Iskandariya/ is a major library and cultural centre مركز located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. It is a commemoration إحياء لذكرى of the Library of Alexandria that was lost ages ago. It also is an attempt to revive something of…
More notes on gender Posted by aziza on Sep 17, 2011
To add to my previous remarks about masculine and feminine, there are some words that refer to the same thing, and they have different gender, e.g. there are two words for window in Arabic: (نافذة) which is feminine and (شباك) which is masculine, likewise there are two words for life/living (حياة) which is feminine and…
Some notes on gender Posted by aziza on Sep 15, 2011
Learning the gender of words in Arabic is often tricky to non-native speakers, as there is not an easy rule that tells us whether a word is masculine or feminine, and many rules have exceptions. One of the most useful rules is that words that end in ta’ marbouta (ة) are feminine, e.g. سميرة, أميرة…