Intermediate - Political Jokes

I can't download the audio transcript. This kind of problem first arose about six weeks ago. As a rule, the PDF transcript appears on the screen after 30 seconds, but I often have to click on "Audio Transcript" about 50 times before the transcript becomes available.

After about 80 unsuccessful attempts, I've just managed to download the audio transcript.

Really professional job on the files associated with this one.

As to the main lesson, love the short translation interjections explaining briefly, in turn, some of Arabic explanations.

Post Lesson Commentary is a nice extra touch. On one or more of the earlier lessons, the PLC made points already made in earlier lessons.

I really use the heck out of the straight dialog file. I listen to the main lesson two or three times to get the points, then efficiently listen to the dialog file ten, twenty, or more times to train the ear.

P.S. We say, generally, in regard to a house whose contents have been taken that the house has been burglarized. The event itself is a burglary. The way it is stated in the transcript and in the lesson suggests the house itself has been taken away by someone.

The word ﺴﺮﻖ looks quite harmless, but it can cause a lot of trouble. It poses morphological and semantic problems for learners of Arabic and translation problems for native speakers of Arabic.

Let’s begin with the problems encountered by people who are learning Arabic as a foreign language. When the diacritics are removed, the active and passive forms of the verb look identical. The active form is “saraqa”, while the passive form is “suriqa”. Two vowels are changed. The same bizarre phenomenon can be observed in many other verbs. Take ﻜﺘﺐ, for instance. “Kataba” (active) means “he wrote”, while “kutiba” (passive) means “it was written”. The first “a” becomes “u”, the second “i”.

In order to determine whether ﺴﺮﻖ is active or passive, one has to examine the context. “Our house has stolen” (active) is nonsense, so the verb must be passive. The sentence evidently means “Our house has been burgled” (British English) or “Our house has been burglarized” (American English). In British English we can also say “We’ve been burgled”. There’s no need to mention the house.

Now let’s examine the problems encountered by native speakers of Arabic. The verb “saraqa” can mean “steal”, “rob” or “burgle”. These verbs are not interchangeable, but most native speakers of Arabic are unaware of this fact, and if they do not take the trouble to consult a monolingual learner’s dictionary (e.g. the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), the odds are that they will choose the wrong word and say something like “Our house has been stolen”. This is absolute nonsense since nobody can run off with a house under his arm. “The house has been theft” is even worse since “theft” is noun (not a verb).

Unfortunately, the problems posed by ﺴﺮﻖ do not end here. Michael G. Carter has edited a fascinating book entitled “Arab Linguistics” (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1981). On p. 316 there is a very interesting sentence containing the passive verb form “suriqa”. It reads as follows: “suriqa zaydun tawbuhu.” A literal translation would read: “Zayd was stolen, his garment.” In English this is bunkum because a person cannot be stolen. It evidently means “Zayd’s garment was stolen”. Similarly, “suriqa zaydun farasuhu” means “Zayd’s horse was stolen”. The differences between English and Arabic usage are bewildering.

hi admin......I cannot get the monologues to work at all.The computer says "mamnour" and advises to me to seek help from you .would be most grapefruit for a little help.löl

Wonderful exposition, Desmond, as usual. Thanks.

Excellent jokes. Lots of rich vocabulary to be extracted from this lesson.

Mohammed, I liked your comments about Ghaddafi. Let us hope that his days as أحد الحكام
and all the رشوة, فساد, طاغية
are numbered... Just imagine if Libya were a safe place to visit and had a democratically elected government. The world would definitely be better!

By the way, in the spirit of jokes. Long before the recent wave of Arab uprisings, I was spreading the following joke in Arabic... which was from a poster in Egypt from the Mubarak political opposition... it goes like this:

أن تعطى ابنك موبايل فأنت لطيف..
أن تعطى ابنك سيارة فأنت كريم..
أما أن تعطى ابنك بلداً وشعباً يلعب بهم هو وأصحابه فأنت مبارك

My translation would be:
If you give your son a mobile, you are nice. If you give your son a car, you are generous. But if you give your son a country and it’s people to play with, then you and your accomplices are blessed (i.e. Mubarak).

Nice to see that the Mubarak's were not so blessed after all.

@Jenkki, Nice one. Love the joke, it would have been suited for the above lesson.

@berry, just right click on the monologue and do a ‘save as’. It should work, otherwise send an email to contact@arabicpod.net and we’ll try our best to help you out.

Everyone else, interesting comments you’re leaving here. It’s great :-)

@ jenkky & Mohamed

A few months ago I heard another joke about Mubarak. It was told by an Egyptian journalist who was interviewed by the BBC. Mubarak meets the spirits of Nasser and Saddat, who are convinced that he must have been shot or poisoned. When they enquire who was responsible for his death, Mubarak replies “Facebook”.

What is the procedure for extending the premium subscription? From what page? I did it successfully before, but I see there is no button etc. Tried filling out the form again and it wouldn't let me subscribe anew.

I was able to extend by using fashioning the request as an "upgrade" even though it is an extension. Extending a premium subscription should be made easier, guys.

@Desmond, good one. Egypt has the largest amount of internet users in the middle east, so no doubt facebook and other sites have huge significance with regards to spreading messages/opinons between the people.

@chazyouwin, thanks for your feedback. We’ll review the extension process and try to improve.

This is very helpful and timely for our difficult election season this year. Greetings from the USA in 2020! I'd love to download the activity sheet if possible! Thanks again!