posted
I was taught that with a b in front is more like present progressive tense in English - "ana bakallim" - "I am talking" "ana akallim" = "I talk"
inta tikallim = you (male) talk inta betikallim = you (male) are talking
but the distinction is less important than in English. One of them with b or without b - can't remember which! is more common in spoken Egyptian.
I think the differences you are hearing between inti/enti etc are just slight unimportant (to arabic speakers) differences in pronunciation between the speakers. Egyptians have a very hard time hearing the difference between e and i in English and often say i for short e sound (for example many cannot hear the difference between 'beach' and 'bitch') - same as we can barely hear the difference between h and 7.
I stand to be corrected by the way if anyone disagrees with me! Posts: 5593 | From: Egypt | Registered: Dec 2005
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I'm still puzzled as to why we would add a b when we say I speak or I understand but not when we say you speak etc.
Posts: 29 | Registered: Jul 2008
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I'm still puzzled as to why we would add a b when we say I speak or I understand but not when we say you speak etc.
quote:Originally posted by Shanta Qadeema: I was taught that with a b in front is more like present progressive tense in English - "ana bakallim" - "I am talking" "ana akallim" = "I talk"
posted
Gail& Shanta these 3 phrase you wrote are in wrong spelling: ana bakallim inta tikallim inti tikallimi
The right spelling should be : ana baTkallim inta tiTkallim inti tiTkallimi
There was Missing T in each of them But any way they are not inthe very right arabic grammer, THE B is for present progressive tense as Shanta said , also as Asjective, so you say: inta bittkallim inti bittTkallimi This is theright way for using , and I hope this helps By the way the way of saying sings as: inta tiTkallim inti tiTkallimi Is very very funny way of reading and talking arabic , and not sure why the course you are doing is using them ,, unless you hear them wrong
Posts: 1373 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by GailC: This is driving me crazy. I'm on lesson 4 of Pimsleurs Egyptian Arabic. Early on we learned:
inta tifham inti tihami ana bafham (not sure of spelling)
I'be been waiting for the explanation of why 'I understand' has a 'b' in it but know we're onto ana bakallim inta tikallim inti tikallimi
and still no explaination.
I've checked 2 phrase books and my online Vocab Clinic and I'm still none the wiser.
Can anyone help?
I'm still also confused about the differences between enti/inti ana/ena etc.
I would hate to go to all this trouble and find I'm getting it all wrong.
'i understand' is ana fahem
the b in the front of what u wrote up there is for 'i am' 'im' at the end is telling someone to do something.. 'imni' at the end is telling someone to do something to YOU...like famehtini? do you understand me? fahem? - understand?
unfortuntely, the best way to learn is from the people themself because half egyptian cant even speak right. my nina couldnt say sun...'shems'. lol
Posts: 2757 | From: YOU CAN ONLY SEE WHAT I CHOOSE TO SHOW, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE YOU JUST DONT KNOW | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
Whatever you ppl say in Arabic is understood by Egyptians..don't worry, all the foreigners I've known managed beautifully with inti instead of inta and ezzayik instead of izzayak and so on .. like when we Egyptians can never use the letter P in its right place and take the liberty of talking English the Arabic way like 'THE' is 'ZE' and ya3ni is in the middle of everything we say.
Posts: 3219 | From: Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone. | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Thanks everyone. I am slowly working my way through the Pimsleur and Michel Thomas courses at the same time. I am finding it very useful to do it this way as they have very different approaches. MT is very slow and methodical but Pimsleur jumps straight in with no explanations.
I have set myself a target of getting through 3 hours of lessons a day which of course will take longer as I have to keep pausing to think. If I can keep it up I should get through the advanced course before I go to Sharm end of August.
Does anyone know of an online dictionary that has the Latinized/transliterated Arabic as well as (or instead of) the Arabic script.?
I am soooo not ready to cope with writing yet.
On a good note, I have joined an exchange program and now have a very nice Egyptian lady as a friend. She is advanced in English and studying to be a translater.
Posts: 29 | Registered: Jul 2008
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posted
Gail - learn the writing its not hard honestly.
Just do 4 letters, then tomorrow write those 4 and add another 4 and the day after add another 4! It really doesn't take long and makes life so much easier. I learnt them in a couple of weeks and then every boring management meeting I was stuck in in my last job, I just used to write them out dozens of time.
Transliteration is rubbish - we were using one on our course and it was designed for american accents so of course none of the examples worked properly with an english accent.
Unless you have got excellent hearing, then if you don't know what letter you are supposed to be hearing, you won't know what you are hearing. IMHO of course Posts: 5593 | From: Egypt | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
South_london_male is not wrong, but you're probably not wrong either. You could very well have heard bakallim (or batakallim) both of them are verbs, with only slightly different meanings and usages.
ana bakallim GailC (means either "I talk to/am talking to GailC" or "I call/am calling GailC") as Shanta rightly said the continuous (progressive) aspect is not as distinct as English.
OR ana baTakallim MAA3 GailC, is possible "I talk to/am talking to GailC" but in this case South_london_male you would have to use "maa3". There's no way for her to have missed the "maa3" if it was that verb, so she probably heard correctly. You're not crazy or hard of hearing GailC!
I also second what shanta said about the Arabic script. Learn it! Now! You don't have to but I would be ashamed that hundreds of millions of Arabs and East Asians who have phonetic or pictographic writing systems have the patience to learn the utterly retarded English spellings, but I couldn't be bothered to learn the extremely easy and logical Arabic writing system. Its infinitely easier than English and you'll be delighted once you learn it (beware of the lack of short vowels though). I don't know if you have the Egyptian Vocab clinic, but they have a summary of Egyptian Arabic grammar and tenses. I'd be glad to explain any of the tenses if you ever need. I love yammering on and on about languages (and I usually know what I am talking about) so pm me if you have question. I'll give you my e-mail.
Posts: 4 | From: downtown | Registered: Oct 2006
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... I love yammering on and on about languages (and I usually know what I am talking about) so pm me if you have question. I'll give you my e-mail.
I would dearly love to know - what are the 100 most common ROOTS in Egyptian Arabic - I find them such a good way of generating vocabulary - and it really suits my learning style. I found a list of 6000 roots and obviously its too many and I don't know where to start!
(example root if you don't know what I'm talking about: KTB - so I can get book, writing, author, library, bookshop etc by generating lots of words with KTB in them and if I see a word I don't know with KTB in it I can probably guess its about writing, and GMA - gathering, collection, university, mosque, etc etc).
So IDKE if you can help me I would be grateful!
Posts: 5593 | From: Egypt | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Thanks everyone. Iduknoweither I will take you up on your kind offer.
I came to the conclusion that I had to decide between learning a few words, which will no doubt amuse the waiters and shopkeepers (and maybe get me my drinks a little quicker ) or taking it more serious.
So now I have ordered a heap of stuff to help me learn the grammar and writing. It's going to take a lot more time than I had originally planned but I am finding it very enjoyable if challenging.
Shanta, I have bought '501 verbs' which seems very useful but I think there is also a '201 verbs' and Jane Wightwick/Mahmoud Gaffar's Arabic Verbs and Essentials of Grammar seems quite good (once I got over the shock of English straight to script for much of it, ie very little tranliteration).
Dzosser - I take your point but I'm a bit of a control freak. If I do something, I like to do it well. I know they will be well used to 'pigeon' Arabic but for me it defeats the objective if I don't at least try to get it right.
south-london-male - are you Egyptian?
Momma Dukes, I have just got to ana fahem. If I have understood correctly, ana bafham is used when talking of understanding language and ana fahem otherwise.
The 2 courses I'm doing are supposedly the best there are for Egyptian Arabic but both have good and bad points.
The Michel Thomas set is excellent at explaining why things happen a certain way and the English and American students can inspire confidence as they make more mistakes than I do.
On the other hand it's not very good to be listening to 75% of the Arabic with mistakes and incorrect pronunciation and the English tutor pronouncing differently to the Arabic speaker. Frankly I would have preferred Mahmoud Gaffer to teach the whole course and Jane Wightwick can be very irritating when she rambles on about 'memory hooks' eg the ayn being the sound you produce at the dentist, and going through the Samir or Samira door to pick up the male/female tags.
The Pimsleur course is excellent in that the only Arabic spoken is by the 2 Arab speakers but there is almost no explanation of grammar and verbs - just this is how we say .....
Pimsleur is also slightly demoralising in that at the start of each lesson they have a conversation which we should be able to understand most of but they speak WAY too fast. I have to pause after every sentence to think about it. They also abbreviate words sometimes without saying that they are doing it - very confusing.
OK, rant over. Between the 2 and my Vocab Clinic, I am getting there with lots of goodies I've ordered to progress from there.
Thanks again for all your help, and IDKE - I will pm you.
posted
Here are 25 roots and 100+ words that I thought of; tried to keep them somewhat simple and useful: k-t-b: yektib, kitaaaba, maktab, maktaba, kitaab, kaatib, maktoob
he writes, writing, library/bookstore, office, book, writer, written
H-s-b: hisaab, muhasib bill, accountant
k-l-m: kelima, kalaam, yekallim, mekallim, yetakallim (maa3) word, speaking/way of talking, he calls/he talks, caller (?), he speaks (to)
sh-f-'a: yeshfi, shafa', mustashfa to heal s.o., cure, hospital
sh-gh-l: yeshtaghl, masghal, mashghool, shughl, shaghaal(a), shaghaala he works, workplace, busy, work, it functions/works, maid
Islam, peace, safety, to make someone or something safe/to say hi to s.o.; to convert to Islam, Muslim, to surrender/give up
H-q-q: haqeeqa, haqeeqi, yuhaqqiq, taHqeeq, haqq/haqooq a fact, real, to make s.t. come true (i.e. your dreams, ambitions)/to investigate, investigation, the Truth/a right/rights
n-t-g:yestantig, muntag, intaag, nateega he deduces/concludes, a product, production (also the filming studios out past 6th of October), a result
kh-r-g: yekhrug, makhrag, kharoog, khaarig, mukhrig, yestakhrag, yetakharrug he goes out, an exit, an outlet/exit, outside, film director or producer, he extracts (like oil), he graduates
d-kh-l: yedkhul, madkhal, dakhool, daakhil he enters, an entrance, entry, inside
T-y-r: yaTeer, Tayyara, Tayyaar, Teer he flies, a plane, a pilot, a bird
H-a-y: Hayyaa, Hayyi, Haywaan(a) life; live (broadcast)/living (as opposed to dead); animal
s-k-n: yeskun, maskan, saakin/sukaan he lives/resides, a residence, a resident/residents (or population)
d-r-s: yedrus, diraasa, dars, yudarris, mudarris(a), madrasa, daaris, he studies, studying/a study, a lesson, to teach, a teacher, a school, a pupil
q-w-m: yaqoom, iqaama, yuqaawim, taqweem he stands/gets up, residency (also the second shorter call to prayer right after the big ones), he resists
s-f-r: yisaafir, musafeer, safar, safeer, sifaara he travels, a traveller, a trip, an ambassador, an embassy
f-k-r: huwwa faakir, huwwa mufakkir/yufakkir, yufakkir someone, yiftikir, mufakkir he remembers, he is thinking (fee = about; don't use 'fee' if you're thinking about doing, going, etc.), he remembers, a thinker (less common)
h-m-m: yehtimm bi, ihtimaam, haamm, muhemm he cares about, (n.) care, important, important
l-H-z: yilaaHiz, laHza, mulahiza (comment, note), malhooz he notices, a moment, comment/note/a notice, noticable
'a-m-n: imaan, ameen, t'ameen, imaana, yu'min bi, mo'min, (religious) faith, loyal, insurance, he believes (e.g. in God; religious), a believer
he delivers/connects, delivery, a cable, means (to an end), a connection, a reciept, he contacts, a call, (tele)communications
b-w-l: yubawwil The last one only has one derivative and its not even from Arabic. My Egyptian friend told me somewhat embarrassed "saa3aat nas tubawwil fissharia3" And I said "yubawwil? What's that?" "It comes from English", he told me. "Sometimes people 'tubawwil' in the streets? Ohhh, I see..." Blush. lol
I could think of more, but I'm drowsy and so I'll add more soon. A good way to find extra words derived from roots Shanta is to use the Hans Wehr dictionary. It's awesome, you have to know the script and its most useful if you learn the 9 or 10 verb patterns, though there are not more than perhaps 5 really in use in the arabic dialects. Of course these were all of the top of my head I just wanted to put my arabic through the paces and show off a bit- plus I absolutely love finding word-root derivations. I would've studied Indo-European linguistics if I had lots of time and money to burn. But instead I only have a fair amount of time and money to burn, so I studied Arabic Posts: 4 | From: downtown | Registered: Oct 2006
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