Wikipedia for learning languages
ديسمبر 9th, 2007Wikipedia is a very useful tool for studying and learning a new language. The English Wikipedia is very well known, with over 2 million articles. But, it is important to know there are versions of Wikipedia in 253 other languages, ranging from major languages such as German to other languages not spoken as widely, such as Wolof (spoken in Senegal). The Arabic language Wikipedia currently has 45 483 articles, so is still relatively small and growing.
The software (MediaWiki) that runs all the different Wikipedia sites is the same, along with consistencies in how other aspects of the sites are set-up. Articles and pages usually have links to the same articles or pages in other languages. This helps if you want to know how a word is said in another language. One feature of Wikipedia sites is the use of templates, which denote article maintenance tasks needed for articles, or other things. Many of these templates have been translated into other languages.
In reviewing vocabulary words, I came across one such template on Wikipedia:

Source: Arabic Wikipedia (licensed under GFDL)
This template is used by Wikipedia users to let others know they are busy and will not available (much or at all) on Wikipedia, for some time period.

Source: English Wikipedia (licensed under GFDL)
The key part of this is: هذا المستخدم مشغول
هذا - (hatha) - this
المستخدم (al mustkhadam) user
مشغول - (mashrul) busy
In Arabic, there is no “to be” verb. So, put together the words “this” + “user” + “busy” and that translates as “this user is busy”.
