Ordinal numbers in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 18, 2009
Ordinal numbers, like first, second, third, etc. are used to mention the rank or order of things. They are derived from the numbers, and in most of the instances follow the pattern of (فاعل), e.g. ثالث, رابع, خامس, etc. When they are used as adjectives, they must agree with the noun they modify in gender and…
Question words in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 12, 2009
In Modern Standard Arabic, questions begin with question words. However, in some colloquial dialects like Egyptian, question words often appear at the end of the sentence, e.g. what is your name? in MSA (ما اسمك؟), and in ECA (اسمك إيه؟). It is interesting to note also that question words differ from standard and colloquial and…
Egyptian Food: Koshary Posted by aziza on Jun 11, 2009
Have you ever tried koshary (كشري)? It is a traditional Egyptian meal that is usually consumed for lunch. It is very easy to prepare, but takes a long time to do because it contains different ingredients. However, it is very popular, especially that all the ingredients do not cost much, and there are lots of…
Talking about the weather in Arabic Posted by aziza on Jun 7, 2009
The weather can be a very interesting topic in some countries, especially when it is unpredictable. In the Middle East, the weather is mostly as predicted. We do not usually have the four seasons in one day, as is the case in the UK for example. So, people do not talk about the weather as…
Obama’s address to the Muslim world Posted by aziza on Jun 5, 2009
Obama’s speech in Cairo University was a really significant event. It has been awaited with great anticipation and was very well received with a lot of optimism. In his speech, Obama emphasized the strong relationship between America and the Muslim world and the contribution of Muslim civilization to the Western world as well as the contributions…
Aragoz: the famous Egyptian puppet Posted by aziza on May 31, 2009
Aragoz (الأراجوز), also Karagoz is a traditional puppet in Egyptian popular culture. It started about 70 centuries ago, and since then has continued to entertain people, young and old. It is a small puppet of a man with a funny pointy hat and bright clothes. The puppet appears on a small stage or stand behind…
Even more on numbers and agreement in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 29, 2009
In this post, I continue to explain rules related to numbers and their specification(التمييز). I deal specifically with a very confusing set of numbers, i.e. between 11 and 99. Although it is very easy to form the specification for this set of numbers, gender agreement can be a challenging aspect. When we talk…