The theme of nature in Fairuz’s songs (2) Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Oct 11, 2017
In this post, we’re looking at two songs by Fairuz , following the same theme of the previous post. Both are in Lebanese Arabic. – The first song is: شايف البحر Do you see the sea? شايف البحر شو كبير؟… كبر البحر بحبك Do you see how big the sea is, that big I…
The story of a poem Posted by aziza on Oct 8, 2017
This post tells the story of a very famous poem by the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, called ‘To My Mother’ (إلى أمي). It was originally called an apology to my mother. Mahmoud Darwish tells that he had 3 brothers and 3 sisters, and he was the middle son. When older siblings are given duties, he was…
Arabic Numbers 1—10: MSA vs. Dialects Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Oct 5, 2017
Deemed as one of the most difficult languages to learn, some may wonder what makes Arabic so. Well, one aspect of difficulty is the variation between the standard formالفُصْحَى (formal, educational form) and the dialectal, colloquial, conversational form العَامِّيَّة. As to numbers, as is the case with most variations, the difference is morpho-phonological. That is…
The theme of nature in Fairuz’s songs (1) Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Oct 4, 2017
The first part of this blog post explores some of the nature-related words and phrases that appear in one of Fairuz’s most popular songs. We’re going to study one in this post (below: lyrics & video clip) and another in the next post. This one is in Lebanese colloquial Arabic. Fairuz is one of the…
Run with Saudi Women in the Open Air! (2) Posted by jesa on Sep 30, 2017
Marhaba! Last time I share with you a clip about a group of female runners in Saudi Arabia that have found benefits in running in open air in the streets of the cities. I hope you enjoy the post and learned new things about Saudi Arabia, Arab women, and the Arabic language. Today I provide…
20 Common Verbs in Arabic with Examples Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Sep 28, 2017
In a previous post, you learned how to make a basic verbal sentence*, a sentence that is essentially composed of فِعْل ‘a verb’ and فَاعِل ‘a subject’*, and whatever follows is called a complement. The complement can be مَفْعُول ‘an object’*, شِبْهُ جُمْلَة ‘a prepositional phrase’*, or حَال ‘an adverb’*. In this post, you will…
Everyday Arabic phrases, using a kids’ song (4) Posted by Hanan Ben Nafa on Sep 27, 2017
Welcome again to the fourth and final part of this blog post that I’m dedicating to a kids’ song ماما ردي علي ‘Mom answer me’ which we are using to learn some everyday phrases. In this part, we’re continuing to learn how we can say these phrases (originally in Standard Arabic) in the Egyptian and…