Lower Intermediate - Just arrived

The use of “'alayk” (ﻋﻠﻴﻚ) in the opening sentence calls for a few remarks:

(1) Since “'alayk” elicits empathy on the part of the hearer, it may be considered as a kind of ethical dative (datives ethicus).

(2) The ethical dative is used in a wide range of languages, including Latin, French, Spanish, Polish, Hebrew and Aramaic.

(3) The ethical dative was used by Shakespeare (cf. “As You Like It”, III, 2), but is rare in modern English.

(4) Since “'alayk” has no direct equivalent in modern English, the opening sentence of the dialogue under discussion might be rendered as “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting” or “I’m sorry I kept you waiting”. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting” is more common in British English, while “I’m sorry I kept you waiting” is normal American English. This distinction, however, has become blurred in recent decades since younger speakers of British English are strongly influenced by American usage.

(5) “You” establishes an empathetic link between the speaker and his interlocutor, while “keep + waiting” is an indirect equivalent of “ta'ahart” (ﺗﺄﺨﺮﺖ). This translation shift, which is rendered possible by the cause and effect relationship between “be late” and “keep + waiting”, is known in French as a “modulation” (cf. J.-P. Vinay / J. Darbelnet, Stylistique compare du français et de l’anglais, Paris: Didier, 1971, p. 11), and the French term has been adopted by many English-speaking translation scholars (cf. L. Kelly, The True Interpreter, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979).

hello and thank you for ur good efforts.I have been learning arabic for one year and during this time I have just listened to arabic,without any reading or wirtting and speaking and now I am not able to speak arabic at all . I am asking you whether It is enough I mean "listening" or I need to study other materials.

It depends on the purpose that you study Arabic for. If you learn it because you work in an Arab country and you want just to talk to people, then you will survive, but if you want to master Arabic for other reasons, then indeed you need to delve into the transcripts and even check your understanding in the exercises. A major mistake that I noticed some people do in learning English is to focus on the the listening skill but ignore the rest, so you find someone is really able to speak English but when you ask him/her to read few lines of text you'll see how embarrassed they become.

Wow, another great lesson, I feel embarrassed in all my studies of Arabic I have not come across دوبني or any of its conjugated forms... I have heard of لتوي as meaning "just" or "recently" followed by a perfect conjugation. I actually have only looked at the Audio Transcript right now, but where does the دوب come from? Is it as-sham dialect? In Iraq, I know they use "Hissa" to be mean "now" or "just now ate". Great piece of edification once again gents! Thank you.

Ahlan Tomes!

Like you, I'm very impressed by Ehab's huge Arabic vocabulary, and I'm also puzzled by the word ﺪﻮﺒﻨﻲ. After listening to the podcast I used ﺪﻮﺒﻨﻲ in an e-mail. The recipient of my missive - a very cultivated native speaker of Arabic who is currently working on a linguistic research project at a French university - politely replied that my Arabic was flawless, but he added that he couldn't make out what I meant by ﺪﻮﺒﻨﻲ. There must be some other expression that will be understood throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

The word (دوبني) is well known colloquial word that is used in most Arab countries, and those countries that don't use it still know what it means.
The origin of the word in not clear as it does not have direct link to classical Arabic.
I can call two possibilities of the origin:
1- The word (دوب) is coming from (da2aba دأب) which means (used to do something), and the meaning is twisted in the street to indicate (started doing something).
2- The word (دوب) is coming from (d'u2ba ذؤبة) which is very classical word that means (the edge or the beginning), so you say (ذؤبة الرأس) which is (the edge of the forehead - beginning of it).

The second assumption might be closer as it is common for the letter (ذ) to be twisted to (د) in colloquial.

Nevertheless, there is still possibility that (دوبني) is a borrowed word from another language, so if someone has this word used in their language with similar meaning, then this probably would be the origin of the word.

Thanks for the extra information, Ehab. I've just run a Google search. The results clearly show that ﺪﻮﺒﻨﻲ frequently occurs in modern Arabic texts, but the origin of ﺪﻮﺐ still remains shrouded in mystery, and it's not clear whether ﺪﻮﺐ is a noun or an adverb. Perhaps the other listeners can shed some light on this question.

Fascinating linguistic debate once again, these forms are such eye openers for us Arabic Learners!

شكرا جزيلا

Tomes

indeed lads - level is ever increasing - great, as this answers exactly to my needs when learning a foreign language - I did study in college latin and old greek for 6 years( a long time ago though) - this explains why I love these enriching discussions - great added value to the programme-thanks