Turkey military operations in Iraq

أبريل 2nd, 2008

This Al Jazeera news clip, from a month ago, has the headline:
الجيش التركي يعلن إنه بدأ عملية عسكرية برية في شمالي العراق

There are some key words here to help understand the news clip, including:

جيش (jeysh) - army

عسكرية (askaria) - military

عملية (a’malia) - operation (including military operations, but also medical procedures and other uses of this word)

بر (barr) - land, ground

أعلن (a’lana) - announce

بدأ (bada’a) - begin

شمال (shamal) - north

Also place names:

تركي - Turkey

عراق - Iraq

With these words, the headline translates as “Turkey announces the army is beginning military ground operations in northern Iraq”

Mahdi Army

يناير 11th, 2008

Al Jazeera posts video clips and programs on YouTube. Watching these helps with learning vocabulary, pronunciation, and improving listening comprehension. This video is from last spring, about the Mahdi Army in Iraq. The word for “army” is جيس (jeish).

Fire at the Al Rashid Hotel

ديسمبر 1st, 2007

Searching YouTube for something to watch and listen to relating to the last post about government ministries, I found this:
حريق في فندق الرشيد قرب وزارة الخارجي
A fire at the Al-Rashid Hotel near the Foreign Ministry.
حريق (hareeq) is the word for “fire”.
فندق (funduk) means “hotel”.
وزارة الخارجي (wizara al kharija) means “foreign ministry”.
This is a hotel in Baghdad, located in the Green Zone. I’m not entirely sure of the date for when this happened, but found news articles that talk about it (I think).
Baghdad hotel hit by rocket attack - BBC News
The video:

About This Blog

I am studying Arabic at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, and will be in Egypt in the summer. This site covers Arabic grammar, vocabulary, and other aspects of the Arabic language, and makes frequent use of YouTube videos, news, and other Arabic language resources on the Internet.