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shukran jaziilan lads - very usefull for my next trip - the middle east is the fastest growing market in kitesurfing : egypt , oman , morocco etc..

Where did the men go? A place adverbial is missing after "I went with my friend".

"Friend of one day" is also very odd. There's nothing like this in the Arabic text, and word combinations like "friend of one day" are normally only found in sentences such as "The friend of one day became the foe of the next".

Thanks Desmond for highlighting the typo, it should have been "friend one day" and not "friend of one day"

Is something missing in the Arabic text? Can you use the verb "dhahaba" without a place adverbial? In English this is only possible if a place has already been mentioned. Example:

A: Yesterday I went to the skating rink.
B: Did you go there alone?
A: No, I went with my friend.

After reading your Arabic text I do not know whether the men went to a skating rink or a frozen lake (or perhaps a frozen pond or river?).

Welcome back ya Mohamed and Ehab, good to have another lower intermediate from you lads
I used to be a crazy (alpine) skier all my life until I decided that I am not a winter person at all... then I switched to water skiing whenever I could!!! So my question is: how to distinguish between snow and water skiing in arabic?
Plop, I always loved your pic there, I tried windsurfing once and failed badly, so I guess in kite surfing I would give a desperate performance... ah well, maybe I should give it a try at least once...

Desmond, I think in the last sentence the "ice scating" simply was not repeated because it was already mentioned in the conversation before. The conversation would be the same in German.

Thanks lads for another wonderful lesson with a great topic, lets have more of those soon Yours truly
Na7la

This comment concerns two questions raised by na7la: (1) verb complementation and (2) sports terminology. Let’s begin with verb complementation. If the omission of a complement after the verb ﺬﻫﺐ is deliberate and in perfect conformity with contemporary Arabic usage, it deserves serious attention, for in the textual configuration under discussion this type of omission is not possible in English. There are only two ways in which we can normalise the English sentence beginning with the words “I went with my friend”. If we wish to provide specific information about the place the two men went to, we can add a prepositional phrase which will assume the function of a place adverbial (e.g. “to a frozen lake”). Alternatively, we can insert the word “skating” after the verb “went”.

Now let’s consider some of the problems associated with Arabic sports terminology. There is no article about water skiing in the Arabic version of Wikipedia, but there is an article about snow skiing (normally referred to simply as “skiing”). This article is entitled “tazalluj (ﺘﺯﻟﺞ 'ala (ﻋﻟﻰ al-jaliid (ﺍﻟﺠﻟﻴﺪ”, and it contains an unambiguous photograph of a man disguised as Father Christmas. He is shod with skis and standing on a snow-covered slope. All right, you will say, now we know exactly how to translate “snow skiing” into Arabic. Unfortunately, however, the term used in the Wikipedia article is identical with the expression which Ehab and Mohamed have used for “ice skating”, and there is no article about ice skating in the Arabic version of Wikipedia. It is therefore easy to imagine the acute embarrassment (al-khajal al-shadiid) that will be felt by a television interpreter who has to work at supersonic speed and give a faithful rendition of a speech about snow skiing and ice skating.

Good points are being highlighted. The verb (d'ahaba ذهب) is a (Laazem لازم) verb, which means a verb that does not require the object to be one single word. (Laazem and Muta3addy اللازم والمتعدي) verbs is a subject on its own, inshallah we will do a lesson on it very soon.
In this dialogue, because the verb is laazem and the sentence before it indicates that we talk about skiing, last sentence didn't require an object as it has an embedded one which is (to ski) regardless to the type of skiing as the type (lake/river) was not the aim of the conversation.

About the terminology of sports, just like what we said in the lesson, it is all down to what comes after (تزلج), so saying (ice skiing) would be (تزلج على الجليد), snow skiing (تزلج على الثلج) and water skiing would be (تزلج على الماء). The word (snow) means (ثلج) while (ice) means (جليد), so Wikipedia is not accurate in their article.
Hope all the points have been covered, clearly.

indeed na7la - you should give it a try - after a few lessons (having been dy hard skier no need for to many ) you should be up and running - a whole new (antigravitational) world will open for you
good luck -keep us posted on your progres

Baa Humbug!
I've made thousands of landings in my life...all over the world...but none like the one I made several years ago when my wife talked me into giving ice skating a try.
Why I acquiesced...only husbands would understand! But I did...and had taken one-or-two steps on that slippery surface...AND... I fell on my A...! Why the A...? Because I had fallen on it several times throughout our life together and had announced in a loud enough voice each time, the precise area of my anatomy that served as my landing field.
"You know dear," my wife said after the third such adventure, "every time you play ball with the children, and slide into second base.you can be heard complaining about your poor A... Why don't you try another word next time?"
"LIKE WHAT?
"Like donkey. There is a close relationship there. But, I love you anyway."
"OK! So I fell on my donkey and for the next week I had to carry a pillow around...WHY? So I could saddle up before I sat down."

Next time you are planning such a lesson please let me know in advance so I can saddle up. Habits are not easily overcome.

MC

When the next crash landing occurs you might try out a few Arabic words, Mario. I’m sure you already know the preposition ﺨﻟﻒ, which has been used in several podcasts as well as in one of the Arabicpod videos. Like its English counterpart, ﺨﻟﻒ can also be used as a noun denoting that part of the human anatomy you’ve just alluded to.

Synonyms tend to proliferate in this domain, so there are plenty of other words to choose from: ﺮﺪﻒ, ﺮﺪﻓﺎﻦ, ﺴﺎﻓﻟﺔ, ﻄﻴﺰ, etc. I can supply more if you like. Varietas delectat.

All these words might be combined in a Rabelaisian podcast. I’m sure Ehab and Mohamed could concoct something hilarious.

Ok, not to give you the idea of chickening out, yours truly is always ready and thanks to Plop and MC for the encouragement and (haha) new ideas. So I will have to strap a pillow around my donkey to perform well in kite-surfing...
I am not sure if anybody wants to see this, haha, Plop, can we make an apointment??? You look to be a good teacher in water issues
Mario, congrats to your wife, she must be an extraordinary person to come up with the bunch of AP-holics...
tisbah al khair
Bee

ب كل السرور يا نعلة - the best place for initiation is egypt : air at 30 and water at 28 - and undeep water so you can stand - a lot of people have their first kitesurf exposure there.

Ok Plop, the temps and conditions for water sports just sound ممتاز to me (in or out of the water) and together with some arabic language training sounds like a perfect holiday, so plan for october time, haha

Mohamed and Ehab, any language trips planned from AP side???
Back to study now, too many things to learn yet
Cheers all, Na7la

Yes Na7la (نحلة), there was a trip to the Middle-east this summer, just keep an eye on the video section .

أعتقد أن سوف تظل هادئة للوقت أإ. أي تعليقات المطلوبة. شكرا.

Not sure what I wrote...but I'm getting the hang of the keyboard.

MC

I hope someone will translate the above script. It clearly not what I thought I had written which was: :I believe I'll retire because it is now two thirty in the morning. Comments would be welcome. Thanks."

The first two words I recognize and, of course, thanks, but the remainder could be anything from I'll get a cupcake to 'move over dog!You'er Hogging it you know!'

MC

The dialogue could continue with the first speaker saying:

صعب بصراحة...شعرت بالخجل كذلك, لكن أريد أن أتحسن

"It's hard, to be sure. I felt embarrassed too, but I want to improve."