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very good lesson , it will better ( i think) if it'll be more levantine arabic lessons

I have heard so much about Noor, I'll have to watch it sometime, do you think it will be released in America ever?

Anyhow, so it appears in Levant they prefer the words تتفرج instead of تشاهد . Do they use "shaahed" in other contexts? How would they say a word like "watcher/viewer" in Levant? Do they go back to مشاهد?

Thanks, great lesson!

Tomes

Very clear, very nice, interesting subject. Love all this new content. - Charles

Hi Tomes, Just noticed your comment/question. I have found the word متفرج on http://www.lessan.org/en. However, I don't know whether or not it's commonly used in the Levant.

Dear Karen,

ﻤﺗﻓﺮﺝ is a very common standard Arabic word for “viewer” or “spectator”. It belongs to the same family as the verb ﺗﻓﺮﺝ (watch) and the noun ﻓﺮﺝ (comfort, remedy, relief). It is mentioned briefly in a study by Ignacio Ferrando, “El árabe estándar moderno: formación, estructura y desarrollo” (p. 172).

Thanks for the reference, Desmond.

I could have cited dozens of other sources, Karen. Just one question: Can you access the Lessan website? I haven't been able to gain access to the site since yesterday. Every time I click on "Lessan: Wörterbuch Deutsch-Arabisch" I receive the same message: "Verbindung fehlgeschlagen." I wonder if the site has been moved to some other part of the Web.

Hi Desmond, I've been getting the same message. Lessan is definitely down for the moment. Perhaps they're having a technical problem or there is some update going on. :-(

Thanks for the useful information, Karen. Sometimes odd things happen to websites. Several months ago all the word lists and grammatical information on the "desert sky" website disappeared for about ten days. Although the website was set up by a young Russian Arabist who lives in Moscow, all the usual information was replaced by German adverts for Arabic food. All the addresses were in Munich.

Incidentally, I think we're the only listeners who know about the Lessan dictionaries. The other Arabicpod fans never mention them in their comments.

Have you ever consulted the "desert sky" site? There are a few spelling mistakes (cf. the entry for "cycling"), but the English translations are very good, the explanations are easy to understand, and a lot of extra information has been added recently.

Hi again Desmond,
A search for Lessan just threw up this link: http://wwwm.baheth.info/web/all.jsp?start=true. Very mysterious.
Thank you for the "desert sky" tip - it doesn't seem to be working either though. :-(

Dear Karen,

The sudden disappearance of the Lessan dictionaries is very annoying, and the mysterious link you mentioned doesn't seem to lead anywhere.

The "desert sky" site isn't easy to find unless you've already been there. Just key in "hukuuma government" without quotation marks. At the top of the screen you'll see "Arabic government and politics vocabulary". If you click on that title you'll land in the middle of the site. I'm sure you'll be delighted with what you find.

Dear Karen,

The Lessan dictionaries are back. What a relief! What do you think of the site I recommended yesterday?

Thanks very much for your note, Desmond. I'm glad Lessan is back. I had a brief look at the desert sky site this morning before work. Very good. I'm sure the other AP members would find them useful as well.

Hi TOMEST05, that would be something for Noor to be released in the US! I haven't watched enough American soap operas to know how it would compare

You can use both مشاهد and متفرّج in the Levant to mean spectator/viewer. Good questions, guys!