Religion is definitely important in Middle East countries, with Islam overwhelmingly dominant. Though, in Egypt, there is a minority Coptic Christian population. The word for “church” in Arabic is كنيسة (kanisa).

This video clip comes from BBC Arabic, which talks about the Roman Catholic Church, which has built a church in Doha, Qatar:

The word for “get, attain, occur” is حَصَلَ (hasala).

Examples of how this word can be used:

* I received a degree from Harvard University in 2004. - حصلتُ شهادة من جامعة هارفارد في سنة 2004

* He got the most number of votes in the election. - حصل معظم الاصوات الانتخابات

Conjugated in the perfect (”past”) tense:

As in English, questions in Arabic are indicated with use of rising intonation.  Here are some question words in Arabic:

مَل (hal) - do (as in “do you?” or “is it?”), used for yes/no questions

ما؟ (maa) - what?

ماذاذ؟ (matha) - what? (used with verbs, such as “what are you doing?”)

مِن؟ (min) - who?

أينَ؟ (ayna) - where?

كَيفَ؟ (kayfa) - how?

متى (meta) - when?

لماذا؟ (limatha) - why?

كم؟ (kam) - How many?

Examples

مِن هُوَ؟ - Who is he?

مِن أينَ أنتَ؟ - Where are you from?

كَيفَ حالك؟ - How are you?

كَيفَ الحال؟ - How are things?

ما هذا؟ - What is that?

مل يوحد؟ - Is there …? or “are there …?”

The verb “translate” is ترجم (tarjama) in Arabic.

From this verb, a number of different nouns can be derived including “translator”. The word for “translator” (male, singular) is مترجم (mutarjim) and for “translator (female, singular) is مترجمة (mutarjima). The plural, masculine form of the word is مترجمون (mutarjimun) or in some grammatical situations, it is مترجمين (mutarjimin). The feminine, plural form (”translators”) is مترجمات (mutarjimat).

Another noun derived from the verb is “translation”. The singular form of the word is ترجمة (tarjima) and the plural is ترجمات (tarjimat).

The BBC Xtra English program for March 26, 2007 was about translators or more specifically about subtitlers (people who write subtitles for films). They talk about how skill and quality is important for the job, and how lack of quality has led to some “bad translations”. They use the word ركيكة (rakika) to describe these as “weak, meager, poor quality, feeble” - ترجمة ركيكة (tarjima rakika).

The entire clip can be heard on the BBC Xtra English website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/elt/newsid_6495000/6495143.stm

The BBC Xtra English segment from December 5, 2005 is about various terms in English for streets, including the term “lane” which is deemed “classier” and can help a property sell for more.

Again, while this segment of the BBC Xtra program is intended for Arabic speakers who are learning English, it is also very helpful for learning Arabic since they explain things in both English and Arabic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/elt/newsid_4493000/4493070.stm

Here are some Arabic words used in the BBC Xtra audio clip:

Here are some words to help understand this news clip, which is about banks and money in the Gulf area:

To become proficient for reading newspapers and magazines, one needs to learn 3000-4000 words, and more for reading fiction or general conversation. (source: The Art and Science of Learning Languages - by Amorey Gethin) Many of the key words to learn are verbs, which are used repeatedly. In the last post, verbs were introduced along with the concept of conjugating them. It would help to learn one (or more) new verbs each day.

I already know some verbs, including these below, and will be posting new verbs regularly.

As is customary in Arabic, these verbs are given in the 3rd person, masculine past tense, which is how the verbs are listed in the dictionary.

Most verbs in Arabic are built around a trilateral root, consisting of three consonants. For example, the word دَخَلَ (dakhala) which means “to enter”. The root of the word is د + خ + ل . The consonants will remain the same, no matter what tense the verb is in. As in Spanish, verbs in Arabic are conjugated (change form, depending on pronoun). In the “present” tense, it works like this, with use of a prefix (ت - “ta” , ي - ya, or ن - na) along with modifying the vowel pattern. The root consonants remain the same. The following example is in the “past” or perfect tense, with a suffix attached to the root.
He entered - دَخَلَ (dakhala)
She entered - دَخَلَتْ (dakhalat)
You (m. sing.) entered - دَخَلَتَ (dakhalata)
You (f. sing.) entered - دَخَلَتِ (dakhalati)
I entered - دَخَلَتُ (dakhalatu)
They (dual m. - 3rd person) - دَخَلا (dakhala)
They (dual f. - 3rd person) - دَخَلَتَا (dakhalata)
You (dual 2nd person) entered - دَخَلْتُمَا (dakhaltuma)
They (m. pl) entered - دَخَلُوا (dakhalua)
They (f. pl) entered - دَخَلْنَ (dakhalna)
You (m. pl) entered - دَخَلْتُمْ (dakhaltum)
You (f. pl) entered - دَخَلْتُنَّ (dakhaltunna)
We entered - دَخَلْنَا (dakhalna)

Arabic does not have an exact equivalent of the “present” and “past” tense, as used in English. Instead, it has the “perfect” and “imperfect” tenses. Perfect tense is used to describe actions that have been completed, such as “he ate” but not “he was eating” which is imperfect (incomplete action in the past or present). The above example is the perfect tense, describing completed actions in the past. The above is also in the “active” voice (”he entered”), rather than “passive” which would be “he had entered”.

When looking up words in the dictionary, verbs are given in the male singular third person (”He”), in the perfect tense. For example, you would find “to enter” listed as دَخَلَ (dakhala).

The BBC Xtra English segment for January 30th discusses employment agencies in the UK, and bogus ones.

Here is the link to the BBC segment, which discusses various English phrases such as “wannabe stars” and “take advantage of”. The BBC page also includes the ability to listen to the clip:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/elt/newsid_7217000/7217474.stm

Here are some words mentioned in the clip:

The word for “employ” is وظف (wathafa) and “employment” is توظيف (tawthif).

مزيف (muzayyaf) - fake

وكالة (wakala) - agency

ممثل (mumaththil) - actor

عارض الأظياء (arada al-azya) - fashion model

رسم (rasm) - fee; رسوم (rusam) - fees [pl]

والدان (walidan) - parents

طفل (tifl) - child; أطفال (atfal) - children [pl]

مجاني (majjani) - free

عقد (aqd) - contract

نقد (naqd) - money

غير (ghayyara) - to change

تفاقم الازمة الدبلوماسية بين لندن وموسكو - BBC News (January 2, 2008)
The rest of the first paragraph is:
ازدادت شدة التوتر في العلاقة الدبلوماسية بين موسكو ولندن عندما قام الروس بتحرك قضائي اضطر المجلس الثقافي البريطاني إلى اغلاق احد مكاتبه في سان بطرسبرج، ثاني المدن الروسية الكبرى.
تحرك - move, instigate, set in motion, rouse, …
قضائي (qada’i) - judicial, judiciary
اضطر - to force
مجلس - commission, council, board, court
ثقافى (thaqafi) - cultural, educational
أغلاق (i’ghlaq) - closing, shutting, locking, barring …
مكاتبه (makatiba) - office
ثاني (thani) - second
مدن (mudun) - cities (pl)
كبرى (kubra) - largest, greatest
Altogether, it translates as: “Tensions have intensified in the relations between Moscow and London, as the Russian judiciary moved to force the British cultural council to shut down its office in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia.”