Beginner - In the restaurant

Tomes wrote:
Very useful episode! I've heard the word "freakh" used for Chicken in I think Egyptian dialect, is that prevalent elsewhere?
Also what is the word for "waiter/waitress" in Arabic?

tomes

yeah, Ferakh is used and is known in Egyptian dialect.
"waiter/waitress" in the classic Arabic means 'Nadel' but in restaurants people call the waiter "Garsoon" which comes from French "garçon".
I like these type of questions ,, keep it up ;)
Salam

Dennis Niemeyer wrote:
In your PDF transcript you have written "dried" fish but it should be "fried".

Keep up the good work, I am working my way through all of your podcasts.

Thanks Dennis, we have changed the transcript

I like this podcast very much I used some of them with my students. Thank you

how would you say "you like" or "he likes" instead of just أنا أحب

To say "you like" you change Ana to anta when addressing a male or to anti when addressing a female and you change U7eb to tu7eb.

انت تحب - You like

To say "he likes" you change to huwa yu7eb.

هو يحب - He likes

To say "she likes" you change to heya tu7eb.

هي تحب - She likes

Hope this helps

Great lessons mashAllah.

in the transcrit the Daad in the word ufadal (I prefer) seems to have a kasra under it, but in speech you seem to be saying the daad with a fatah on it. Which is it? Ufadal with a fatah or ufadil with a kasrah?

It is (أُفضِّل ufad'el) with kasra.

salam

i am from pakistan.ana atakalam arebee kalil..this program really help me..how we say in arabic..i was born in abu dhabi..i lived in abu dhabi for 17 years ..and then i shifted to houston..and i lived in houston for 17 years..and now i am living in islamabad pakistan

Welcome onboard farahnaz.. (I was born in Abu Dhabi) is (Ana wuledtu fee abo 6'abi أنا وُلدت في أبو ظبي).. Actually it is an important sentence and I think we need to make a lesson about it ;) .

As-salamu aleykum (for one person only?) likull.
In the last sentence in Arabic you have used #as-samak# with definite #al# article, however, its translation in English is just #fish#. Are we talking about not liking fish in general or this specific fish? Shukran.

In the dialogue in the last sentence in the PDF it is written #o7eb#, however, you somewhat pronounce it with double #b#, that is #o7ebb#. Is it so, or just I hear it that way? Shukran.

Your guest Craig asked a question with regards to the definite article #al#, why you pronounce it #as-samak# instead of #al-samak#. I have come across this question in the previous lessons and would like to try and explain the issue the way it was explained to me. Perhaps it might help someone.

#Al# is always attached to the word it qualifies and is transliterated with a hyphen:

الولد al-walad - the boy

The pronunciation of #al# is affected by the letter following it. 14 of the letters of the alphabet are categorised as 'sun' letters and when #al# is followed by a 'sun' letter the #l# of the article is not pronounced but assimilated by the 'sun' letter which is itself then doubled. E.g.: الشركه ash-sharika.

ل is also a 'sun' letter and when a word begins with it then the 2 #laams# are always written together: اللبناني al-llubnaanee - the Lebanese.

The 14 'sun' letters are: س ش ز ر ذ د ث ت ن ل ظ ط ض ص
All other letters are known as 'moon' letters and pronounced in the normal way: البيت al-bayt.

Wa 3alaykum assalaam Iskandar,
Starting from the first point. We are talking about fish in general. Unlike English, when you like or dislike something, in Arabic you have to make it defined, so you say o7ebbu assamak, o7ebbu attuffaa7...
Probably u noticed how I wrote (I love/like), it is really written as (o7eb) and (o7ebbu). People in the street don't put strong stress on o7eb, however, the proper and classical way of saying it is o7ebbu (I love) with a stress on the (ba) letter.
Finally, many thanks for your comment about sun and moon letters, that was very good explanation :)
Shukran

Dear Ehab,
I have one question on this sound assimilation issue similar to that of # al # article but this time it is regarding letter # n #.

So my question is as follows. In the phrases #Ashhadu an la ilaha illallahu...# & #...innaka 7amidun majeed# I sometimes hear #aN la# in the 1st & #7amiduN majeed# in the 2nd sentences pronounced as # aLLa # & #7amiduM majeed#. Does #n# assimilate with certain sounds following it such as # l # & # m # in the examples above? Or is it more correct to pronounce it as it is written: #aN la# & #7amiduN majeed#?

Thank you.

IskanderYahya,

This is down to applying the Tajweed rules (recitation rules) onto those phrases. Because the first one is in the ad'aan (calling for prayer), the tajweed rules are applied onto it. In those rules, if a Noon saakenah (silent letter noon - ن) is followed by letter Laam (ل) then you fuse both letters by hiding the noon (ن) so instead of saying (an laa) you'll say (alla). The second one, (7ameedun majeed) has almost the same rule, and you pronounce it as (7ameedummajeed).
Hope that is clear.

This was a particularly good and useful lesson! :)

Salam,

hi, ehab and mohammad,

Which one is the correct افضل (ofa9'el) or afa9'ol. In my arabic class the teacher use afa9'ol with fathah on allif and ض. I need your explanation.

Anyway i really appreciate to both of you for this excellent lessons.

برك الله فيكما

Ahlan Sharby,

Indeed (Ofa9'el - أُفضِّل, with 9'amma on letter alif and kasra on letter 9') is the correct one, and remember the meaning is (I prefer).

Probably your teacher used (af9'al - أَفضَل, with fat7a on letter alif and fat7a on letter 9') which is a comparison word that means (better than).

تحياتي

Shukran for the explanation.

Hello Mohamed and Ehab,
unfortunately I can not play this lesson, have been trying to do so for two days. Could you help please?

I'm glad you've drawn attention to this problem, na7la. I haven't been able to play any of the podcasts or videos today, and yesterday I could only play two or three podcasts. We both live in Germany. I wonder how listeners in other countries are faring.

Sorry this is happening guys. We just tested the podcast and it seems to be playing fine from our end. We're investigating whether there is an issue with listeners in Germany. If anyone else is having this problem, please let us know

Hi Desmond, I also had problems with some other of the podcasts yesterday, but they are working fine now. For the moment it is just this not working for me, lets hope it can be fixed soon! BTW I really loved your question about the rabbit and the hare :-) I immediately checked all available sources, but of course was totally unsuccessful... so Ehab's reply was much appreciated!!! Now maybe we need to find out as well what "Osterhase" means in arabic... I guess this is a typical German tradition for Easter?

Thank you Mohamed for looking into this for us! In the meantime we should go on a diet for not being able to order food in the restaurant, haha too bad as lent is just finished here... ;-)

Ah, diet over!!!! Just tested again and it works now! Desmond, how about you?

I would like to know if the dish "shawerma" comes from the same root as مشوي ? In this case shawerma would be written like this in arabic شورمة ???

Nice to know that everything is back to normal, hope that is the case with all our listeners.

Osterhase is an interesting word. I never heard of it before, and when I checked it in Google I got something like (Easter Rabbit!).

It seems this German tradition is not a tradition in the Arab countries, or at least the ones that I lived in, as I've never heard any of our friends or neighbours in Jordan making such thing in Easter, though we used to share a lot about each others' tradition.

I don't know about Egypt, normally Egyptians are known in eating rabbits, so probably Coptics do such thing, we need someone who lived there to confirm.

General speaking, we probably can translate (Osterhase) to (Arnab alfe97 أرنب الفصح) which translates to (Easter's rabbit) or (Arnab 3eed alfe97 أرنب عيد الفصح) which is The rabbit of Easter festival.

No Na7la, Shawerma is not an Arabic word, it is a borrowed word from either Turkish or Persian.

أرنب عيد الفصح should be the correct translation as the Osterhase is not necessarily eaten at Easter, but he is "responsible for bringing the eggs (chocolate or real ones) to the kids for Easter. Traditionally he hides the eggs in the garden" and the kids get totally excited while looking for the eggs :-) So you can imagine the kids reaction if they would find a rabbit on the table for Easter lunch, haha...
It is a different story however with the Osterlamm, the "lamb of Easter" which is quite a traditional dish! So that would be حمل الفصح ?

Hello na7la, Ehab and Mohamed!

It's amazing how quickly you've reacted. I've just made a few spot checks. I still can't play any of the videos, but I've been able to play three of the podcasts. That's better than nothing.

"Osterhase" literally means "Easter hare" The Easter hare tradition dates from the seventeenth century. Children are told that hares hide Easter eggs in gardens. At Easter chocolate hares are sold in shops all over Germany.

There are no Easter hares in the British Isles, but there are Easter bunnies. ("Bunny" is another word for rabbit.) My aunt, who lives in Belfast, told me the shops were full of chocolate bunnies last week. Ehab, if you go for a stroll through London you'll probably find Easter bunnies all over the place.

Na7la, I have some information for you. I think you recently asked a question about dictionaries. Yesterday I discovered a very interesting source of lexical information. Do you know www.ensanyat.com/qamos? There are no collocations or idioms, but there are a lot of technological and economic terms that I couldn't find in the other online Arabic dictionaries and glossaries. I wonder if Ehab and Mohamed know this site.

Desmond, thanks a lot for the link! However, I can not make out how it works... don't forget, my arabic is way below yours :-).
A short while ago I found a very nice Visuelles Wörterbuch arabisch-deutsch, the editor is Coventgarden. There is a lot of vocabulary with pics, sorted by themes (available also for many other languages as well). Of course this can not replace a real good dictionary, but it is nicely done and not at all expenpensive! I also had it checked by my visiting friends from Syria and they confirmed the arabic to be correct!

Another question, is there a difference in the two arabic words for food: الاكل و الطعام

shukran katheer for the excellent arabic lessons it is a great help to me to converse with my friends from the Maghreb.

Hey, thanks for the great lessons, they are amazing, I have some questions about the verbs, toreed is you want, I want is oreed? Ofa9'el is I prefer and you prefer is tofa9'el and the last one is o7eb, for YOU would be to7eb?! shukran!!

السلام عليكمThank you for the useful lesson.In the dialogue,I noticed that'أفضل'is very similar to 'تفضل',in the lesson'I don't smoke'.So,do they both mean the same but Tafa9'al is used when suggesting something to someone? Like 'Would you like ..'? And when I say it to more than one person,how Tafa9'al change into plural form?

@Kurumi
In this lesson, أُفضِّل is the First person Present tense of the Form 2 verb
فَضَّلَ / يُفَضِّل على
= to prefer someone / something to someone / something

In the lesson ‘I don’t smoke’, تفضَّل is the masculine singular imperative of the Form 5 verb
تَفَضَّلَ / يَتَفَضَّل
= to have the kindness of doing / to do something

The imperative this Form 5 verb is used to mean the following –
Here you go!, Go ahead!, Help yourself!, Please!, If you please!, Come in!, After you!

The different forms of this imperative are –
Masculine singular – تَفَضَّلْ
Feminine singular – تَفَضَّلِي
Masculine plural – تَفَضَّلُوا

@vinod
Thanks for the explanation.It helped a lot.^^Now I am somewhat used to present tense and past tense,so next I need to understand more about imperative.In another lesson,I remember Mohamed said that using imperative is not so rude as it is in English.It will take more time for me to feel the sense of it.
I'll do my best,Shukran!