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"Hanging on a planetarium" doesn't make sense. As far as I know, the Arabic word for "planetarium" is "blanetarium", not "qubba samaawiyya".

A planetarium is a model of the solar system, sometimes mechanized to show the relative motions of the planets, and I doubt whether "qubba samaawiyya" can denote this kind of model. The literal translation of "qubba samaawiyya" is "heavenly vault", and "heavenly vault" is probably what is meant here. "Heavenly vault" is a very common English expression which has literal equivalents in languages like French and German.

I would say "it does not hang from a heavenly vault". The simple verb form ("does not hang") would be appropriate here. The progressive form ("is not hanging") would refer to something temporary (e.g. "He was hanging from the balcony when the firemen arrived.").

My question is somewhat unrelated to the lesson. Is there a way to specify past and future in "if" sentances even though they require the past tense in Arabic? For instance how would you signify the difference between "If I have the money (tomorrow)" versus "If I had the money (last week)" if both would be "لو كنت عندي"? How is the difference expressed between "If I was going to the store...", "If I went to the store..." and "If I go to the store..." ?

@hexagonmoon, let me attempt to answer some of your questions, based on my knowledge.

A conditional sentence in Arabic consists of a conditional particle followed by a condition clause, and, a consequence clause.

There are three conditional particles in Arabic - إن, إذا, لو

لو is used for an improbable / imaginary / unreal condition. إذا is used to imply a probable condition. After لو and إذا , the condition clause is written in the past tense.

لو كان عندي فلوس can mean both ‘If I had money’ or ‘If I have money’, but the speaker implies that ‘I did not have money’ or ‘It is unlikely that I will have money’.

If you want the condition clause to be in the present tense, use إن as the conditional particle, followed by verb in the jussive.

Hosts may correct me, if there is any mistake in what I wrote.

@ vinod & hexagonmoon

Unreal conditional clauses introduced by ﻠﻮ (law) are notoriously difficult because they blur distinctions which have to be made in other languages (e.g. Latin, English, French, German). Consider the following examples:

(1) If I had enough money I’d buy a car.
(2) If I’d had enough money I’d have bought a car.

Sentence (1) refers to the present, while sentence (2) refers to the past. When these sentences are translated into Arabic they look and sound identical, and we have to examine the context carefully in order to find out whether the speaker or writer is referring to the past or the present.

Another point that might be worth mentioning here is that the apodosis (“jawaab” in Arabic) is often introduced by the particle ﻝ (la). This particle remains untranslated.

Finally, I must add that I am extremely puzzled by hexagonmoon’s strange word combination “if I had the money (last week)”. This word combination is impossible in English. We can say (1) “if I had the money now” or (2) “if I had had the money last week”. (1) refers to the present, while (2) refers to the past. Examples:

(1) If I had the money now I would give it to you.
(2) If I had had the money last week I would have been able to buy the book.

When “if I had” refers to the past “if” means “whenever”. Thus, for instance, we can say: If (or “whenever”) I had enough money I went to the theatre”. This type of sentence refers to habitual actions and is quite different from the other constructions we have been discussing.

I was a bit surprised to see Desmond's comment on "heavenly vault" because when hearing the lesson, I "dome" was used and "heavenly dome" might be a better (as in more direct) way to render the meaning of قبّةٍ سماويّة . I agree with Desmond that using "planetarium" here seems awkward. "Planetarium" connotes something concrete. Here in the states we visit a planetarium, like we visit a museum, to see exhibits, models - things.

@ chazyouwin

I'm surprised that you're surprised, Charles. "Qubba" can be rendered as "dome" or "vault", and "heavenly dome" is no better than "heavenly vault". "Heavenly dome" and "heavenly vault" are both in current use, and they mean the same thing. You can also say "the dome of heaven" or "the vault of heaven". All these expressions are perfectly correct, and they all render the meaning of the Arabic word combination under discussion.

I've no idea why "planetarium" was chosen here. You can hang a picture on a wall or hang a chandelier from a ceiling, but you can't hang anything "on a planetarium".

Ehab,

Which are the ayat that you and Mohammed were referring to at the end of the podcast?

Interesting discussion everyone. Just to highlight the the verses that has been mentioned:
- Universe was one joint entity: Ch.21:V.30
- Universe is expanding: Ch.51:V.47
- Earth and moon all in orbits travelling: Ch.36:V.40
- Everything in the universe will collapse back to to how it was before (not sure if this is already discovered or not): Ch.21:V.104

A good translation can be found here anyway: http://quran.com

thanks for a stunning lesson, your instinctive use of the change of the expected tense to add emphasis and show the passing nature of the idea is a wonderful reflection of arabics ability to show emphasis, the planaterium is such a brilliant visual image to convey the real info, on , as "on a christmas tree", reveals the natural talent that flows between both of you, avoiding the problem of 7 heavens was so elegant, thank you for the verses ..great stuff.

Ehab,

shukran. I will check it out.

Desmond - I think "heavenly vault" is just more literary, hence less familiar, and there are more common uses of "vault" that are less like the dome style roof of the past. "Dome" just seems very direct and familiar. But if one thinks of usage during Galileo's time "heavenly vault" might very well be the better phrase. Cheers, Charles

Dear Charles,

I wouldn't describe "dome" as a familiar word. In the present instance we could use "heavenly dome", "heavenly vault", "celestial dome", "celestial vault", "the dome of heaven" or "the vault of heaven". All these expressions could be labelled "literary" or "academic". When they are employed in literary texts they just mean "sky", but in academic texts (e.g. texts about the history of painting, the history of philosophy, the history of ideas) they have a very precise meaning. They denote an extremely ancient world-picture (the closed universe). The Etruscans, for instance, believed that the celestial dome was divided into 16 compartments inhabited by various divinities. Our modern world-picture (the open universe) was originated by Anaximander (d. 546 BC), who was the first speculative astronomer.

In the case under discussion it is essential that the Arabic text should be rendered with the utmost precision. Anything that will distort or obscure the meaning of the text (e.g. the image of the planetarium) must be avoided at all costs.

löl

is there a way to determine the plural of a noun.
is there a system? or do u have to learn it for each one

There are three types of plural forms in Arabic, two of them can be identified by looking at the last two letters of the word. These two forms are جمع مذكر سالم and جمع مؤنث سالم which are the regular plural of masculine and feminine words respectively. The pattern for these two types takes (ون or ين) at the end for the masculine type, and (ات) for the feminine type. The irregular plural form called (جمع تكسير) and one has to learn it for each one. Best thing to do is to go to Lessons page and search for (plural), we made few lessons on that topic.

thanks that really cleared up some stuff

Just a little something to help Ehab relive his childhood : )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9uAecAGMFg

The Labiba intro segment!

Gosh, that does bring memories! zamaaaan