Lately, I have spent time learning vocabulary and focusing on adjectives. This includes words such as طيب (tayyib), which means “good”, مبسوت (mabsoot) which is “happy”, as well as adjectives to describe not so happy situations or conditions. The word for “awful” is فظيع (fathee). To reinforce these words, it helps to find examples where they are used on sites like YouTube.

Searching for فظيع, over 30 videos come up in the search. One of these is titled حادث قطار مصر. I already have seen the word حادث (hadath), which can translate as “event”, as well as “accident” or “incident”. مصر (misr) is the word for Egypt. قطار (qitar) is the word for “train”. In Arabic, adjectives will follow nouns that they describe or modify. In this case, it’s حادث (accident, event, …). What kind of accident? The word قطار (train) serves as an adjective, describing what kind of accident.

The video was posted to Google Video in October 2006. On English-language news sites, I quickly found out what this is.

• Egyptian train crash kills 57 - CNN
• 14 charged over Egypt train crash - CNN
• Another train crash in Egypt - blog entry

I assume the video is of the August 2006 crash, though apparently train wrecks are not so unusual in Egypt, with the rail system very antiquated. When I’m in Egypt in the summer, I will need to travel around, beyond Cairo. This includes traveling to Alexandria. Traveling by train seemed like a good option, but now I don’t know. It’s probably still safe, but who knows?

Anyway, here is the video footage that I found. فظيع (awful) is indeed appropriate to describe it, so caution.