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What are some other colloquial expressions for بحث عن just because, I know that I've very rarely heard this expression used for people at least amongst my friends, does this maybe mean more like "look into" or "research" in colloquial dialects? I believe in Iraqi it's "Dhandawer" I think it derives from
انظر
not sure exactly. Great lesson again thanks!

Tomes

Hay Tomest,

There is a colloquial expression for “I’m looking for” which is

أدور على – Udawer 3ala...

I think this is quite common. The Iraqi phrase you mentioned sounds like the plural first person form of it i.e. ندور على Nedawer 3ala...

This is so cool, maybe this program will open dialogue between arabic speaking people and english speaking people. I think wars are often started because of an inability to effectively communicate. If we really understood and loved each other, then we would not go to war anymore. May God bless you guys and make your work fruitful.

The adjective "mawjuud" (existent) calls for two remarks:

(1) The use of "mawjuud" in this lesson highlights the need to distinguish between two meanings of the verb "to be". If "to be" merely serves to establish an equational relationship, it remains untranslated, as in "ana mohandes" (I'm an engineer) or "ana mohasib" (I'm an accountant). If, however, "to be" has a locative meaning, it can be rendered with the aid of the adjective "mawjuud". "Mawjuud" is a clever substitute for the verb "kaana", which has no present tense.

(2) "Mawjuud" also illustrates one of the major weaknesses of the Arabic orthographical system, namely the fact that certain letters correspond to completely different sounds. The letter "waw" occurs twice in "mawjuud". The first "waw" is pronounced like the vowel in Ger. "laut", while the second "waw" sounds like the French conjunction "ou". The same weakness can be observed in English, where "gh" may be pronounced like "f" (e.g. "enough") or may not be pronounced at all (e.g. "through").

Thanks Desmond
Most Arabic vowels come after relative haraka to it, which means Alef normally comes after fat7a like in (بَاب), waw comes after dammah (سُور) and yaa comes after kasra (فِيل).
However, there is another case called (Leen) when the previous rule does not happen, like yaa after fat7a in (بَيت) or your example (مَوجود) where the first waw comes after fat7a.
The vowel should always sound the same, however, the haraka before it fuses into the vowel and causes the sound to be different. If we separate the fat7a from the waw, you will end up with a waw sound similar to the second waw in the word (Ma w ju w d مَـ وْ جُـ وْ د).

Shukran jaziilan Ehab! I can see there's a kind of logic behind the apparent inconsistencies of the orthographical system.

The way I look at this is that the waw sometimes functions as what in English we would consider a vowel and sometimes as a consonant. The yeh' similarly can act as a vowel or a consonant depending on the 7arakat just as in English the letter y is a semi vowel.

Thanks for the illuminating comment, jookieapc!

Hi there guys, I feel like I know you two and would enjoy your company in real life. The lessons are great. Great teaching. One little thing, not a criticism or anything : When you discuss asking a question without the "Hal", the word is "intonation" for the question indicated by the tone of voice. Just my little humble contribution to you

Intonation questions have been discussed in several lessons (e.g. "Mobile phones"). These structures seem to be exceptionally common in everyday spoken Arabic.

The term "intonation question" is in current use throughout the English-speaking world (cf. M. Elsig, Grammatical Variation across Space and Time: The French Interrogative System, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2009, p. 190). Some linguists, however, prefer the term "declarative question" (cf. G. Broughton, Penguin English Grammar for Advanced Students , London: Penguin, 1990, pp. 267-268).

Declarative questions seem to be a universal phenomenon, and they are also very ancient. They are not uncommon in vulgar Latin texts, for instance.