Archive for April, 2017
saltah سَلْتَة: Yemen’s National Dish Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Apr 30, 2017
Bint aS-SaHn بِنْت الصَّحْن , sousi سُوْسِي , shafout شَفُوْت, and saltah سَلْتَة are some delicious Arabic dishes that are peculiar to Yemen. While the others are popular on special days and occasions, سَلْتَة is eaten every day and by far the most favorite; ergo, it is Yemen’s National Dish. Linguistically, what is the origin…
The 10 Most Used Spices in Arabic Cuisine Posted by jesa on Apr 30, 2017
Marhaba! Over the years, I have shared so many recipes that my wife and I use to prepare Middle Eastern, especially Levantine, dishes and appetizers. As you know, we have learned most of these recipes from our mothers. Given our common passion for Arabic food and cuisine, today, I have decided to dedicate this post…
Arabic Translation Exam-News Headlines (2) Posted by jesa on Apr 29, 2017
Marhaba! I hope you all enjoyed and benefited from translating the 10 news headlines in English to Arabic! I will share more similar exercises that help you perfect your writing and reading skills. An important step in your learning journey is to be able to think, to the extent possible, in two languages interchangeably. This…
Missiles turn into works of art, answers Posted by aziza on Apr 29, 2017
In this post, I present the answers of the listening comprehension questions on the news report from the BBC Arabic service on a Syrian baker who changes missiles into works of art. Questions and answers: أين يسكن أبو علي وكم يبلغ من العمر؟ يسكن أبو علي في دوما بالغوطة الشرقية ويبلغ من العمر أربعين عاماً. ما الذي يميز أبو…
Missiles turn into works of art Posted by aziza on Apr 28, 2017
In this post, I present a news report from the BBC Arabic service on a Syrian baker who changes missiles into works of art. Watch the report and try to answer the following questions. The additional vocabulary at the end should assist your comprehension. Please click the link to watch the video on bbc website…
Arabic ع and غ: Intelligibility vs. Sounding Native-like Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Apr 27, 2017
In speaking a foreign language, do we have to sound native-like? No, certainly not! Being intelligible, in my book, is more important. Intelligibility affects communicating your ideas. Among the difficulties that we encounter when learning a new language is the articulation of certain speech sounds. More specifically, the speech sounds that exist in the new…
Untranslatable Phrases in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic: The Egyptian Man (Part 1) Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Apr 26, 2017
As is the case in almost all languages, there are always some culturally untranslatable phrases that cannot be literally translated into other languages or do not have a straightforward equivalent in other languages. Today, we are looking at a group of these untranslatable phrases that are often used in colloquial Egyptian Arabic to describe men…