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When you said "the Arabic language" in the dialogue you used the words اللغة العربية but I have always been taught that, because of idafa, it would be لغة العربية with the final Ta pronounced in لغة - are both acceptable, or is one correct and not the other?

I had to paste the Arabic into my question from Google Translate, as I don't have an Arabic keyboard layout here at work, and it appears that the words reversed themselves - I was trying to contrast "al lougha al arabiya" to "loughat al arabiya". Sorry if that caused confusion....

You're right that in an iDafa construction, the final ta would be pronounced with the t. If I'm not mistaken, though, اللغة العربية is not an iDafa, but is just a definite noun-adjective construction. In that case the final ta is not pronounced In English اللغة العربية would be, "The Arabic language." I'm not sure if you can use لغة العربية, but I could be wrong.

@ durruti

Shamsayn is right. Al-lugha al-arabiyya is not an 'iDaafa. It is merely a noun phrase consisting of a noun qualified by an adjective.

There are two types of 'iDaafa. A simple 'iDaafa consists of two nouns, while a complex 'iDaafa may consist of a long string of nouns. Thus, for instance, the Arabic equivalent of “a rise in blood pressure” is a complex 'iDaafa: irtifaa’u (ﺍﺮﺘﻓﺎﻉ daghti (ﻀﻐﻄ a(l)-dam (ﺍﻠﺪﻢ (rise + pressure + blood).

The phonetic problems posed by taa’ marbuuta are clearly more complex than is generally assumed. If you listen to the first sentence in the dialogue presented in this podcast you’ll notice that Ehab pronounces taa’ marbuuta like a “t”. This seems perfectly natural, especially since the taa’ marbuuta is followed by a vowel. (Arabs classify the letter “alif” as a consonant, but the sound it represents would be described as a vowel by English phoneticians.) It is much easier to pronounce al-lugha al-arabiyya if you put a “t” between the two vowel sounds.

Now let’s consider a case where taa’ marbuuta is followed by a consonant. The Arabic equivalent of “scooter” is a good example: darraja (ﺪﺮﺍﺠﺔ naariyya (ﻨﺎﺮﻴﺔ. Here the taa’ marbuuta is pronounced like the French preposition “à” (not “at”).

The massacre perpetrated by the serial killer Mohamed Merat recently received wide coverage in the Arabic media. In the French media Merat was referred to as “le tueur au scooter” (the killer with the scooter), and the term darraja (ﺪﺮﺍﺠﺔ naariyya (ﻨﺎﺮﻴﺔ was used again and again in Arabic broadcasts. I noticed that the taa’ marbuuta was never pronounced like “at”, and when I checked the pronunciation in the “Speak Arabic Quickly” dictionary I found that the term was pronounced in exactly the same way as in the broadcasts about the massacre in Toulouse.

It remains to add that darraja (ﺪﺮﺍﺠﺔ naariyya (ﻨﺎﺮﻴﺔ can mean both “scooter” and “motorbike”, and that there is no separate entry for “scooter” in the Arabic version of Wikipedia. This is another case where Arabic tends to blur distinctions which are normally made in European languages.

i think in 'al loga al arbiya' the word 'al loga' is not idafat. if it is idafat, the meaning will change totally which will '' languge of arabic''

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This is interesting - I think I may know where my confusion is coming from. I started a local Arabic language group, the Portland Arabic Language Group. I originally had translated, incorrectly, the title as مجموعة بورتلاند اللغة العربية Several native Arabic speakers advised me that the correct way to write this would be: مجموعة بورتلاند للغة العربية dropping the definite article on لغة and adding the lam, thus the phrase becomes "for the Arabic Language" with لغة picking up its definiteness from العربية This grammar confuses me, but I am not surprised as I have only studied Arabic for about 8 months including 2 months in an informal class and then 1-2 hours a week with a private instructor. My grammar is ضعيف للآسف : (

@ durruti

The rules that apply to 'iDaafa constructions are fairly straightforward. The first element in a simple 'iDaafa is known as the ﻤﻀﺎﻑ (mudaaf), while the second element is called the ﻤﻀﺎﻑ (mudaaf) ﺇﻠﻴﻪ ('ilayhi).

If the 'iDaafa is definite you put a definite article before the ﻤﻀﺎﻑ (mudaaf) ﺇﻠﻴﻪ ('ilayhi). Example: kitaab (ﻜﺘﺎﺐ al-ustaadh (ﺍﻷﺴﺘﺬ: the teacher’s book

If the 'iDaafa is indefinite you leave out the article. Example: 'imaam (ﺇﻤﺎﻢ masjid (ﻤﺴﺠﺪ: an imam of a mosque

If the 'iDaafa consists of a long string of nouns and you want to make the entire word group definite you put the definite article before the last noun in the string.

@Desmond Thanks!

عندي سؤال... لماذا قلت:

مَازَال’ لدَي الكَثير لِأ تعَلمَه’

ولا ’مازلتُ’؟

هل هذا بسبب الكلمة ’لدي’ موجود؟

In other words (in case you don't understand my Arabic)... why did you use the word "ma zaal" instead of "ma ziltu" when you are talking in the first person about "I still"...

@jenkki

The preposition لدى is used in Arabic, to express possession. It does NOT have an exact single word equivalent in English. It means –
“At the place of” or “At the time of”

لدى may be translated to French as chez, when it is used to mean ‘at the place of’.

لدى is often attached to object pronouns.

لديّ قلم
The literal translation would be –
“A pen is at the place of me.”
But we take it as –
“I have a pen.”

So, if you want to translate “I still have a pen” to Arabic, you must translate “A pen is still at the place of me”.
ما زال لديّ قلم

Coming to your question, “I still have a lot …” in Arabic is “A lot is still at the place of me”. That is why, ما زال is used instead of ما زلت

Thanks @Vinod for the explanation. @ Jenkki, you use (ما زالت) with feminine nouns only, so you say (ما زالت السيارة بعيدة) which is (The car is still far away).

In our sentence (مَازَال لدَي الكَثير لِأ تعَلمه) we are talking about (a lot to learn الكثير لأتعلمه) so we are talking about a masculine thing. However, if we are talking about (hours ساعات) for instance, which is a feminine noun, then you would say (ما زالت لدي الكثير من الساعات لأعملها) - (I still have a lot of hours to work). Hope that is clear.

Thanks Ehab and Vinod!

Ehab, I think you missed the exact target of my question a bit (while Vinod hit it dead on).

Maybe I should have rephrased the question to this:

How would you say "I still live in Finland" in Arabic?

You wouldn't use "ma zal", right (it should be "ma ziltu aishu fee finlanda", right)?

@Ehab: You said "you use (ما زالت) with feminine nouns only", but in this example, there is no noun to worry about whether it's feminine or not, and still you use "ma ziltu" because it's 1st person past tense. Whereas, as Vinod explained, when you use ladee, it's like the sentence (or at least the verb) is not in 1st person at all, as Vinod explained above. Did I understand now correctly?

it is really fantastic and useful discussion on arabic garammar. I enjoy it too much