Beginner - Cultural idiomatic expressions 2

Your voting system is a bit confusing. As a result I've given you only one star for the lesson cultural idiomatic expressions 2 instead of the five I meant to. Please take another four stars!
Thanks for your excellent service.

:) I guess they do it like the hotels system, five stars is the best, although I heard that Burj alarab in Dubai is 7 stars!! I don't know.. anyway,, very nice lesson, deserves 5 stars ;)

Very nice lesson as always!
What do you say when someone is going to work? :-)

Can you present a scenario using a classroom?
Also writing Arabic from left to right is difficult. I will be studying Arabic during the summer and need to practice writing. Any ideas?

lsnfleming, Sal, latifa and Yunyah4; Thanks all for your comments.
Just to answer the questions.. latifa, it is not common so say special thing when someone is going to the work,, but we sometimes say (ترجع بالسلامة - terja3 bessalaameh) which means (come back safe).
Yunyah4, we'll take your suggestion of making lessons where the scenario is a classroom in consideration, we have done some before, and we'll do more in the future inshallah. Regarding to writing Arabic, You need to practice writing from right to left, otherwise you'll be drawing the letters rather than writing it. In the exercise that comes with each lesson, the third part of the exercise is to practice writing, you hear the word then you write it, and the software tells you if it is right or wrong.
Keep it up everyone with ArabicPod and you'll see more interesting things coming :).

Hi Everyone
In the lessons so far I've noticed a couple of things I don't quite understand. In some words like "ahlan wasahlan" there seems to be a symbol like an "equals sign" = but inverted over the final letter, I'm presuming this indicates an "n" sound is placed on the end but still I can't find an explanation in any textbooks etc. Could someone explain to me, how it works?

Hi dfg,

Those double dashes ً at the end of the word indeed make the n sound.

There's a good article on wiki about it

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Arabic/LearnRW/Tanween

Maybe ArabicPod can do a lesson on this one day :-)

I'm Rating this site 5 STARS!***** :)
And I absolutly love your Arabic British accent!

This is a question about "tuSba7hu 3ala khair". What if you're about to go to bed, adn you're talking to someone over the phone. Can you still say that over the phone, or is it more common to just say "ma3a-ssalaama". And I also heard it's better to say "tuSba7ayn".?? Does it matter with form you use? Thanks!

You can say it over the phone and it is very common to do so.
(Tu9ba7een) is used in talking to female and it is more classical where the grammar is fully added.

salamu alakum
i dunno if all arabs say this but in iraqi culture, people say 'mushtaageen' when they havent seen you in quite a while. Does anyone know what this means and the reply to this phrase??

Wa 3alaykom assalaam SaraMustafa;
Mushtaageen (مشتاقين) simply means (we miss you). Replies might vary from a country to another, I normally use Teshtaagelkom al3aafeyah (تشتاقلكم العافية) as (good health comes to you).
By the way, it is used every where in the Arab world.

i knew many useful things! Thank you!