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I'm learing and (An-a is-ma'a) Hope I got that right. I spent weeks studying the Arabic alphabet and, I can write the words in pencil.However the pop-up alphabet is giving me problems. But, in a few more weeks I'll get the hang of it.

I'm really impressed with the ease and professionalism clearly apparent in your approach to "getting the job done". And with humor! The world needs more of that!

Regards,
MC

Gaza is known for its hot, spicy food. For "hot", when a lot of hot peppers are added to the dish, we use 'bihrit.' -- and we say that the hot spicy food "opens the appetite" - bif-tah al-nifiz.

Hello MC, I am still laughing about your socks which are defying logic, funnily today I had a strange encounter of the socks-kind as well although I am normally quite organised in that respect...

Hi randaz, I think Gaza would be the right place for me, as I love arabic AND hot/spicy food
BTW, could you write the words you mentioned in Arabic and explain their literal meaning, please?
TGIF everyone, see you around

Brilliant lesson, as usual
However I am stumbling over several things in the second last sentence:
1. (التي), is it a literal translation of "the one" or is it specific in this case refering to the girl?
2. Why is it (تأكلي) instead of (تاكلين) ? In Barrons I found it mentioned as a subjunctive form of the verb, so if this is the case, the literal translation should be: "you're the one who would be eating, not me". Correct, or is there any other explanation?
3. I never came across the word (مو) before, and could not find it in the dictionary either. Does it have a specific meaning, or could it simply be replaced by (لا) as well? Or is it just depending on the context, where to use it?

Thanks for the enlightenment and have a great weekend everyone

Fine, I will take the points one by one:
1- You are right, (التي) is used with feminine objects while (الذي) is used for masculine ones.
2- If the dialogue was classical Arabic, then you are right, it should have been (ستأكلين), but as it is colloquial, then we take it as it is used in the street.
3- (مو) actually is even more colloquial word, and again you would not find it in books, because we simply teach the things that no one else teaches .

By the way, the terms that randaz has used are very nice ones, here is the Arabic text for them:
- bihaaraat بهارات spices (not really chilli)
- bifta7 ennifis (بفتح النفس)opens the appetite

The second term is colloquial, so u better not to try to find it in a dictionary.

Thanks Ehab for the very valuable explanations!
Another question: Is there a plural of the word (شئ)?

Yes, it is (Ashyaa2 أشياء).

Why is the command "give" listed as "haat" instead of "haatni"? Is it unnecessary to use "me"?

Dear hexagonmoon,

The pronominal suffix representing the indirect object (e.g. “me”) is regularly omitted after ﻫﺎﺖ. In some cases even the direct object remains unexpressed after an imperative. Thus, for instance, “Take that picture” may simply be rendered by ﺨﺬ if two people are in the same room and one of them is holding a picture. If you’re interested, I can give you information about a video where you can observe this phenomenon.

yes, please do show me where I can watch it. Thanks

Dear hexagonmoon,

The video I had in mind is called “haqq (ﺤﻖ) al-jaar (ﺍﻠﺠﺎﺮ)”. You’ll find it on YouTube. It was uploaded on 21 December 2007 by algeris17. A small boy who is standing on a stepladder hands a picture to his mother. He says ﺨﺬ, loses his balance, falls off the ladder, and drops the picture on his mother’s head.

The imperative ﺨﺬ is also used without a complement when someone throws something (e.g. a paint pot) at an adversary, and I’ve seen a video where a man says ﺨﺬ as he thrusts a pointed stick into a dog’s throat. The video is entitled “al-kalb (ﺍﻠﻜﻠﺐ) al-shuja' (ﺍﻠﺸﺠﺎﻉ)”.

A distinguished French linguist called Lucien Tesnière (1893-1954) has written extensively about complementation. He uses the term “valency” to denote the property of words which have to be linked in specific ways to the sentence elements that surround them. You could say that the English verb “take” and its closest Arabic equivalent have different valencies.