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Is “shaakka” (ﺸﺎﻜﺔ the feminine singular form of the adjective “shakkaak” (ﺸﻜﺎﻚ?

The person who doubt about something is called (shaak-masculine) and (shaakkah - feminine). Shakkaak is the masculine exaggerated (mubaala3'ah) form of (shak - to have doubt), and the feminine form of it is (Shakkaakah).

Thanks for the additional information, Ehab.

Awesome lesson guys. In addition to the drama, I recommend more of this kind of lesson!

In addition to all the colloquial language, it's also nice to get the swear words. Books don't usually teach those, do they? I'm not saying that I want to use them myself... but, at least it's good to recognize them.

My Dad taught me a few recently, such as:

iks ala kuss ummuk
(don't know how to spell that)...

إبن الكبل

يل عن دين أممك
اللعنة

I guess my dad's able to get away with saying those since nobody (until now) except him understands Arabic...

Anyway, sorry to say those in writing... I know they are rather offensive, right?

@Jenkki, Very offensive indeed! Particularly the first one, it's extremely rude as well.

@Moshaya
Well, <#^! you, too... يا نذل

Just kidding.

@ jenkki

I really enjoyed reading your latest comments. I already know about fifty offensive Arabic expressions, but I don't want to list them here. Some of them would probably make you blush to the roots of your hair.

@Desmond
Come on, man, don't be shy...

@ jenkki

All right, Jon, I’ll give you a few examples without translations. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

mus (ﻤﺺ) zibby (ﺰﺒﻲ)!

ilhas (ﺍﻠﺤﺲ) tiizy (ﻄﻴﺰﻱ)!

’ayry (ﻋﻴﺮﻱ) fiik (ﻓﻴﻚ).

kul (ﻛﻞ) khara (ﺨﺮﻯ)!

The imperatives can be combined with offensive vocatives, and some of these vocatives are very funny (e.g. walad (ﻮﻟﺪ) duraat (ﻀﺮﺍﻄ)).

There are some amusing faux amis (false friends) in this lexical domain. Thus, for instance, the Arabic word for “twat” (ﻛﺲ) sounds just like the English word “kiss”.

Similar examples can be found in other language pairs like German and English. A few months ago I heard a very funny example in the immensely popular German soap opera (ﻤﺴﻠﺴﻞ) “Verbotene Liebe”. A dim-witted German girl was trying to learn English because she had an appointment with an American businessman called Walsh. She wanted to say “Guten Morgem, Herr Walsh. Hatten Sie eine angenehme Fahrt?” (Good morning, Mr Walsh. Did you have a pleasant journey?) Unfortunately, she assumed that “Fahrt” (journey) corresponds to the English word “fart” and said: "Good morning, Mr Walsh. Did you have a good fart?"

I’m sure Mohamed would love to present the aforementioned Arabic expressions in a podcast, but Ehab will no doubt restrain him.

Haha, Desmond. I can speak German fluently as well as English and can testify to that fact.

I love reading the comments to this podcast, I am only a beginner, so I will have to listen. I also love reading the offensive words, but don't really know what they mean. Someone might have to send me translations.

@ clayxmatthewsxfan89

I’m glad you enjoyed the joke. Since this isn’t an XTube forum, I’ll just give you a few hints that will put you on the right track (i.e. the track that wends its way through the nether regions of the Arabic language):

Mus (ﻤﺺ is the imperative of massa (ﻤﺺ.

Ilhas (ﺍﻠﺤﺲ is the imperative of lahasa (ﻠﺤﺱ.

Kul (ﻛﻞ is the imperative of 'akala (ﺃﻛﻞ.

Zib (ﺰﺐ is a singular noun. The plural is zbab (ﺰﺒﺎﺐ.

’Ayr (ﻋﻴﺮ is a synonym of zib (ﺰﺐ.

I’ve always found that learning offensive words and expressions speeds up the language learning process. When I learnt German at school I had frequent contacts with German teenagers. We used a lot of German slang and some very foul language. That was a good way to learn to conjugate German verbs and master German syntax. It wasn’t long before I was able to speak German as fluently as my German friends.

It was the same for me with Finnish... everybody I met, initially, taught me cuss words, "perkele", "vittu", "saatana", and that certainly gave me a feel for the language.

Somebody with genuine Arabic background should correct me if I'm wrong, but supposedly during Ramadan, you are also forbidden from swearing. Is that true?

I asked my fiancé about some of these expressions, and he said it would be horrible for me to use them! so he didnt provide any translations! however i would like to know the meanings of the softer ones, just in case

@Carmouna - I think about the only soft one on my list was إبن الكلب (I mispelled kelb earlier)...
Basically, I would translate this as "son of a bitch" (literally here son of a dog).

Judging from at least some of the words I gleaned from Desmond's list, I think there aren't any soft ones there. By the way, @Desmond, are you originally an Englishman? In the US, we don't use the word "twat"... so I guess in UK you have slightly different slang than us.

Hi Carmouna, I very much doubt that the guys are going to answer your question. You'll find the first three words that Desmond listed in any dictionary. And the last two refer to a particular male anatomical feature.
I suggest you follow your boyfriend's advice

Personally I have never used any of these phrases in my life... Not because they're not used in spoken Arabic, but because I'm not that kind of person

@Jenkki, It's true when fasting in Ramadan one is not supposed to swear, get into petty fights or harm anybody... It beats the purpose of the act of worship (fasting) which teaches self-discipline and respect among others.

Saint Moshaya, right?

@ jenkki

I agree. The words and expressions under discussion are charged with emotion, and emotions play a crucial role in the language acquisition process. In order to attain native-like competence in a foreign language, one has to let words and phrases seep gradually into the subconscious mind. Dreaming in a foreign language normally indicates that the learner is beginning to progress in the right direction. As far as I can remember, I started to dream in German at the beginning of the third year of instruction, and after studying German at tertiary level for four years I dreamt regularly in German and no longer considered German as a foreign language.

Swear words are an integral part of everyday spoken language, but unlike other colloquialisms, they seem to be resistant to change. All the swear words I learnt as a teenager are still in current use, but a lot of other colloquial words and phrases have disappeared or been marginalised. Take the German equivalents of “awesome”, for instance. (I mean “awesome” in sense of “very good”.) German teenagers used to say “prima” and “Klasse”. Although these words are still in current use, most teenagers now prefer words like “geil”, “supergeil”, “affengeil” and “endgeil” or expressions like “Das ist der Hammer!”

Since I grew up in Northern Ireland, I’m more familiar with British than with American slang. What’s the American equivalent of “twat”? “Twat” is quite an interesting word since it can denote either a person or a body part. In this respect it is similar to German words like “Arschloch” and French words like “con”. Perhaps Mohamed can tell us whether there are any words like this in Arabic.

Another point that might be worth mentioning is that vulgarisms can sometimes be used creatively to express powerful emotions like rage, hatred or revulsion. A couple of days ago I heard the following sentence in a German TV programme: “Du hältst dich ja bis heute für toll, weil du damals nach dieser Sache mit Jessica direkt zu mir gekommen bist, um mir dein schlechtes Gewissen vor die Füsse zu kotzen.” The noun “Gewissen” (conscience) does not normally collocate with “kotzen” (a vulgar word meaning “puke” (BE) or “barf” (AE)). In this case, however, the word combination is particularly apt and almost poetic. The speaker is disgusted by his friend’s confession and compares the man’s words to a stream of vomit forming a pool around his feet.

Expressions like “son of a bitch” are also very interesting and can be found in many languages. In Spanish, for instance, you can say “hijo de puta”, and in Arabic you can use dozens of word combinations based on this pattern. You just use an 'idaafa construction beginning with a noun like “ibn” (ﺍﺒﻦ, then you add a word like “sharmuuta” (ﺷﺮﻤﻭﻄﺔ. In Egyptian Arabic you can even call someone a “son of a shoe”. This is an effective way to insult a whole family.

@Desmond, Das ist der Hammer, jawohl!

Seems like your linguistics studies doesn't ignore any of the important stuff

BTW. Forgive me again for my offensive language, but in US English, the word for twat is "cunt"... but, I'm sure you must know that one, too, nicht wahr? Do you know if folks who swear in Arabic (obivously not Mr. Moshaya, but others) call each other "كس"... in Finnish, they just say "vittu", but it's sort of like saying "dammit", i.e. it's not directed at anybody. I think calling somebody a cunt in English (in the USA) is probably the most insulting thing one can possibly say to sb.

@ jenkki

I forgot to mention another word for “awesome”: “saugeil”. When I started to learn German “geil” had only one meaning: “horny” or “lecherous”. Later it acquired a second sense: “very good”, and people began to combine it with other words like “Sau” (sow, sod, hog), “Affe” (monkey, ape) and “Ende” (end). I remember how surprised I was when I first heard the word “affengeil”. I was standing beside a newsstand in a supermarket. While I was leafing through the latest edition of “Der Spiegel”, two small boys turned up. One of them grabbed a copy of the notorious “Bildzeitung”, promptly discovered a photo of a half-naked woman and exclaimed: “Das ist ja affengeil!” The next day I heard the same word again and realised that some important changes were occurring in the lexical domain.

Of course I know the word “cunt”, and since I’m not prudish your apology is unnecessary. “Cunt” is a very old word, it’s widely used in the British Isles, and it’s one of the first words I learnt when I was old enough to walk and my parents let me out to play with other children in the street. The boys were all pretty foul-mouthed, and I soon picked up a considerable number of offensive words and phrases that made my pious grandmother raise her eyebrows.

“Cunt” is like “twat” in that it can denote either a person or a thing. It comes from the Latin noun “cunnus”, which can denote a vagina or a whore. The French word “con” (one of Sarkozy’s favourite words) also comes from “cunnus”. Unlike the Latin word, however, it has separate masculine and feminine forms. “Un vieux con” is a stupid old shithead, while “une vieille conne” is a stupid old bitch.

A few years ago Europe 1 broadcast a debate about the French Senate (the upper house of the French parliament). Since women are underrepresented in the Senate, a feminist suggested that there should be an equal number of men and women in that assembly, but a journalist immediately retorted: “Comme ça il y aurait autant de vieilles connes que de vieux cons!” (That would mean there would be an equal number of stupid old shitheads and stupid old bitches!).

As far as I know, kis (ﻜﺲ is normally followed by a noun denoting a female relative. Thus, for instance, kis (ﻜﺲ ikhtak (ﺍﺨﺘﻚ literally means “your sister’s cunt”, but is used like an interjection and could be rendered in English as “Fuck!”. Arab males seem to enjoy making derogatory remarks about the female relatives of people they dislike, and a similar tendency can be observed in black ghettos in the United States. I found this information in an article about the linguistic habits of black Americans.

The construction of seems very interesting to me. It seems one word intensifies the other and they share similar root. I vaguely recall a lesson wherein the use of a similar word was used to intensify - and the intensifying was shown to be done by a rule. Is this an instance of it?

Sorry. The construction of وصلت به المواصيل seems very interesting to me. It seems one word intensifies the other and they share similar root. I vaguely recall a lesson wherein the use of a similar word was used to intensify - and the intensifying was shown to be done by a rule. Is this an instance of it?

Another thank you for the separate dialogue on this one. With the dialect, intense emotion, varying cadence, and inflections, many of the words were hard to make out the first and many additional times listening.

.كل عام و أنتما بخير .الله سبحان وتعالى يوفقكم ما نويتم. شكرا جزيلا لكنا عشان تعلمانا اللغة العربية