Marhaba!مرحباً It’s Anastasia, the new Arabic blogger! Posted by Anastasia on Dec 10, 2018 in Arabic Language
Marhaba!مرحباً My name is Anastasia Ibrahim and I’m the new Arabic language blogger for Transparent Language! But before our journey through the Middle East starts, let me tell you a bit about myself.
LEBANESE BORN AND RAISED
I was born in 1995 in a small town by the sea called Chekka in North Lebanon(لبنان). I was born at 5:30 am, just when the sun(الشمس) was about to rise, and maybe that’s why I’ve spent every day of my life chasing it! Growing up where I did was easy, we eat, sleep, breathe, and worship the sea(البحر). In fact, my father thought that the best way to teach me how to swim(السباحة) was to repeatedly throw me in the deep end when I was 2 years old, and oddly enough it worked! Ten years later I went on to compete in National Swimming Championships and win two Silver and one Gold medals. Since I was a little child(طفلة صغيرة), I was exposed to two languages at once, so rather than just speaking Arabic(العربية), which is my mother tongue, my mom(أمي) made sure that I was familiar with the French language(اللغة الفرنسية) as well. Then English(اللغة الإنكليزية) was introduced to me through TV and movies.
CAREER (مسيرتي المهنية)
When I graduated college, it was time to choose a career path. I’m a very artistic person, I loved art(الفن): painting, music, dancing; everything that makes one feel alive from within. I was also very good at languages(اللغات), finishing top of my class in French, Arabic and English. My ideal personal choice would have been acting(التمثيل). For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an actress(ممثلة). I wanted to change the world and make my life count. Thankfully, I am doing that today, not as an actress but as a French teacher at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, helping young Syrian refugees(لاجئين) shape their lives one day at a time! Since acting was out of the question for my parents, I decided to take advantage of being multilingual, so I enrolled at the Lebanese University for a BA in Translation and Interpretation.(إجازة في الترجمة)
BEIRUT (بيروت)
When I turned 18, I left my small town and moved to the city(المدينة), the capital, my eternal love: Beirut. First, I was terrified of such change, I was changing my entire routine and leaving friends(أصدقاء) and family(العائلة) behind for a fresh start. But little did I know, this move was going to shape me into the person I am today. Beirut wasn’t a place, or a mere city where I was going to get a degree, it was an experience(تجربة), a state of mind, a journey. It was where I first learned responsibility (living on my own), where I learned how to love and how to let go, where I graduated with a translation degree in 4 languages (+Spanish), where I had my first heartbreak, and finally, where I met my 2 best friends.
TODAY (اليوم)
Since then I moved back to Chekka for a job offer that I couldn’t refuse. The Syrian war(الحرب السورية) enters its 8th year this year, yet the Syrian refugee crisis keeps on escalating. The Lebanese people(الشعب اللبناني) were gracious enough to open their homes for these refugees but alas, it wasn’t enough. The numbers(الأرقام) are frightening and escalating fast. So job demands by UNHCR were increasing, and naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to help. I’ve been with them for 3 years now, and currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Translation Studies and working as a freelance translator(مترجمة) and interpreter. I’m still chasing sunsets, planning a move to a foreign country, seeing what the rest of the world(العالم) has to offer, and finally holding on to my dreams and never letting go.
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About the Author: Anastasia
Marhaba! My name is Anastasia, I'm Lebanese and I'm the new Arabic blogger! As the great prophet Khalil Gibran once said "You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon." For as long as I can remember, my country has been poorly portrayed in the Western media, so allow me to introduce to the magic, mystical, and breathtakingly beautiful land I grew up in called : LEBANON.
Comments:
Sonia (Sunshine):
Marhaba! Wow! You just wowed me! I’ m Sonia and pleased to meet you. I wish you the best on your journey. I just started Arabic with Pimsleur so I wont be able to read until I finish the spoken part. I also have love for languages but I usually learn by studying Writing Reading and Speech simultaneously. So this is an experimental way of learning. I will be able to read the English parts of your blog though. Peace and Blessings.
Anastasia:
@Sonia (Sunshine) Hi Sonia! I’m so glad you liked my post! I have a passion for languages just like you specially for my native language which is Arabic. I hope my future articles could help you improve your Arabic!
Pietro:
مرحبا اناستاسيا! انا فرحان جدأ للقراءتك!
I used to like TransparentArabic’s articles, and from your first post, I can tell that you are going to be the right person for this!
Thank you, good luck!
Anastasia:
@Pietro مرحباً بيدرو! أنا سعيدة بلقاءك أيضاً!
Thank you so much Pietro! I hope my future articles will help you improve your Arabic and hopefully one day you might visit Lebanon!
Naeem:
Naeem:
I’ve been learning for many years.
Currently I’m studying شرح الآجرومية of a Saudi scholar that was posted on the net.
I’m stuck with the translation of following Arabic sentences. Would appreciate if you could help me out by giving some appropriate equivalents for them:
نأتي إلى كلمة اللفظ والمركب والمفيد
هل يصدق هذا الكلام على جملة حضر زيد
عندنا الآن اللفظ المركب المفيد
نأتي إلى كلمة اللفظ هل تصدق على هذه الجملة ؟
نأتي إلى كلمة المفيد هل تصدق هذه الجملة على إن قام زيد
I don’t need the elaboration of grammatical terms; just give me the English translations of the Arabic sentences.
Hope you would spare some of your precious time for me!
Thanks,
Naeem Supra
Anastasia:
@Naeem Hello Naeem!
Unfortunately the Saudi dialect is very different from the Lebanese dialect and therefore I can’t give you an equivalent for your request.
However, if you keep reading my articles you may one day be able to translate them yourself! 🙂
Robert (Bob) Barker:
Hi, Anastasia,
As you know, the English are renowned for their monolingualism. However, this Englishman has always “been different”. At various times in the past seventy or so years I’ve used nine different languages – mostly badly – all of them European.
Now, as I sail all too quickly through my ninth decade, I’m teaching myself Arabic, using books and the Madinah on-line course. I think the most difficult part is now behind me, as I can now read and write Arabic characters. I think that now I must try to understand the Semitic system of vocabulary building – the “Stem” structure. I would welcome any articles on this subject, so different to Indo-European languages.
I look forward to whatever else you may post.
اهلآ
بوب
Anastasia:
@Robert (Bob) Barker Hi Robert!
It’s so nice to discover that there are people in this world just like me!
I can feel your passion for languages through your comment and such passion always warms my heart.
I would gladly write something that could be of help to you in your Arabic learning!
Looking forward for your comments on my next articles!
إلى اللقاء!
Larhubarbe Denis:
Hello Anastasia. Welcome here. It is a great article. I`ve been in beirut in 2016 and it was a very good experience for me. Before going to beirut i thought that all the lebanese speaks french, but to my surprise most of them speak english. I met few friends who speaks french.
J`aime le liban et les libanais. Ils sont tous très acceuillants. <3
Anastasia:
@Larhubarbe Denis Salut Denis!
Thank you for you welcome! What you said is true English is taking over French as the second most spoken language in Lebanon but that’s because it’s so much easier than French in terms of Grammar and terminology. But in the constitution French is still the second official language in Lebanon.
Merci pour votre gentillesse! j’espère que vous visiterez de nouveau!
Larhubarbe Denis:
@Anastasia J`aurais encore d`autres occasions de venir visiter le liban. Pour une première visite c`était vraiment géniale. Je suis partis jusqu`au sud pour visiter la frontière puis je suis partis a Baalbek qui reste gravé dans ma mémoire. J`aime bien khalil gibran, mais voir l`endroit ou il était est aussi très touchant. 🙂
Anastasia:
@Larhubarbe Denis Salut Denis!
Je suis très contente que tu as aimé le Liban! Vous êtes le bienvenu toujours !
Jim B:
Hi Anastasia!
Thank you for the introduction and welcome as our new Arabic Blogger!
I have been learning Arabic through Transparent Language and I can say that it has been extremely effective for me.
Like most diaspora who left at a real young age due to the civil war, we lost the school teaching and only retained what was spoken at home and among relatives and friends. The formal/TV dialect is much harder to understand unless you learned it in school growing up, which would be 2nd nature to real Lebanese natives (and all Arabic countries.)
My request is if you can help us bridge this gap? In the past we watched Youtube clips but there would be ~20-30 new words at a time. It was too much information and most times we would not see the words again, so it was hard to retain.
Good luck in your new role and looking forward to reading the upcoming Blogs!
Anastasia:
@Jim B Hello Jim!
It’s so nice to meet a fellow countryman here! I do understand how tough learning Arabic can be because it’s one of the most difficult languages to master in the world!
Through my writing I’ll be trying to further close the gap between the Middle-East and the West. I hope that my future posts will help you in your learning!