Lower Intermediate - Messy hair

It's interesting to note that there's no direct object in the third sentence. In English it would be possible to repeat the noun "hair" or replace it by a pronoun "it".

In Arabic there are object pronouns which can be attached to a verb. Thus, for instance, "you show him" can be rendered as ﺘﺮﻴﻪ (turi-h). However, I have the impression that object pronouns are less common in Arabic than in other languages.

This may have something to do with the question that Tomes raised on 18 September 2009 (cf. the lesson entitled "I want a piece"). Tomes was worried about the use of double pronouns in Arabic, but single pronouns seem to be just as problematic as double pronouns.

interesting, maybe some verbs are specialised? thus combing only refers to hair, as in english shaving is assumed to apply to chins, only taking on words like "my legs" as this is not felt to be the norm, or to dress, changing its meaning to that of a sick person or child, if it takes a reflexsive pronoun ...to dress my self- thanks for pointing that out Desmond.

lolllll! u guyz crakk me up :D :P
sooo random :D
i was wondering :) does it matter if you say wa2t or waqt or wagt? :P is it important how you pronounce it ?? :D

zahra

In Arabic, we have certain verbs that takes direct object in one word (called Muta3addi verbs) and others that dont't take the object in one word (called Laazem verbs). However, here we have different situation as these verbs that are stated above seem to have an embedded object or common sense object, and I can see this in English as well as Arabic.

We say (I have not studied for a week), (I have not travelled since 2000), (I drink every night) ...
These examples as well as what Berry mentioned above seem to have direct relation between the verb and the object, where these verbs have some form of collocation with the object, to the extend that we can remove the object and those verbs would still work and give full meaning.
This seems to be an area of research if no one before has already tickled it.

Zoska,
Letter (ق) varies just in colloquial Arabic (not in classical) , where some dialects make it souund like (g), others make it sound like (k) etc.
As far as you don't do that in classical Arabic (i.e in reading a book in public ..) then you can use whatever you want, all what is going to happen is that people would know where you came from or where you learnt Arabic.

coool coooool:D thankuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
if you learnt loadz of random bits of like all different dialects and you spoke all mixed up... would people mind? and would they be able to understand what u were tryin 2 ssay? for example askin,
enta ismak ayh? shlonech? ana arqu9 le2anny a7taj an attabawal...
u know what i mean? 3 dialects in 1? :P

zahra

mmm, it depends on how extreme are those dialects. For instance, shlonech (how are you) is used in Iraq, and mixing it with 2albi (my heart) would sound funny cause Iraqi would say (galbi) instead.
If you just use those common dialect words that we use in our lessons you'll be fine, in fact, most of Arabs who spent sometime abroad or mixed with other Arabs from different countries have mixed dialects but they don't use extreme specific dialect words while talking, and I think I'm one of them :)

I have a couple of questions from this lesson. One is, what exactly is the function of كأنك? Also I understand the meaning of شكلك and شكله etc, but I'm wondering how you'd write something like "I look tired" (or exctited, or whatever). Is it شكلي or شكلني? Thanks!!

كأنك basically means "As if" or "you seem to be" e.g.

لم تتكلم كثير كأنك زعلان - You haven't said much as if you are upset

To say I look tired you say شكلي and not شكلني. As far as I know, you only add ني at the end if it's a past tense verb or if the verb already ends with ي or ا e.g.

أكلني - He ate me
ضربني - He hit me
أعطيني - Give me; The verb is not past tense but it already had ي at the end أعطي

haha:D okkk thanx Ehabb :) yuppyupp im a mixed up arab :P:D
urock:D and ur lessons do 2 ;) :)
thanx so much

zahra

.انا ما مشطت شعري من زمان... صدقني, ما عندي وقت