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:

I was recently at a conference in Boston, which was about geography (جغرافي). It’s because I have been traveling a lot and very busy, that I haven’t been able to post.

Anyway, while walking around the conference center, I noticed someone left a box on a table which had Arabic writing on the outside. This was completely unexpected, so I went to take a look. The box was full of books and journals, with a sign saying “free, please take these”. The books belonged to someone associated with the Kuwait Geographical Society, but they wanted to get rid of them. Of course, I didn’t think many people at the conference knew Arabic, yet alone would want the books. So, I took a bunch and came back a while later, and the rest of them were still there. So, I took all of them.

(If the person who left them reads this, THANK YOU! شكرا)

I’m working on one of the books, which is entitled العالم الثالث - مشكلات و فضايا, which translates as “Third World: Problems and Issues”. I’m getting so far as reading the preface which talks about the purpose of the book.

Some of the words that I am learning, as I read include:

مؤتمر (mu’tamar) - conference, convention

حضور (hudur) - attendance

لقاء (liqa’) - meeting

تنمية (tanmiya) - development

اقتصاد (iqtasad) - economy

زراعة (zira’a) - agriculture

حاجة (haja) - need

نشر (nashara) - to publish

مسلسل (musalsal) - series

As helpful as it is to learn the vocabulary, especially vocabulary related to a topic I’m involved in, it is also helpful to see the writing style used. The author writes in the past tense, using كان (kan) and كانت (kana), which means “was”. For example, كان جميع or “everyone was …”.

I was at a local bookshop this week that carries Arabic-language books, movies, and other items. They have a selection of classic novels that are translated into Arabic, along with the English on the opposite page. I picked up a copy of “The Grapes of Wrath” (عناقيد الغضب) by John Steinbeck, and starting now on Chapter One, along with the preface which gives a brief biography of the author.

Some words to learn so far, with the first part of the chapter introducing the time and setting of the story:

Thus, we understand that the novel is starts out in 1930 in the central United States (Oklahoma). Things had been good and prosperous for farmers, with fertile soil and rich crops. But in that June (1930), the conditions suddenly turned with drought (little rain fell) and the sun as a “blazing ball of fire” that turned the soil dry and dusty.

At least the help pages of Google Earth are in Arabic, so I expect the program is also available with an Arabic language interface. When looking at the help pages in English, I noticed a drop-down box which allows you to view the help page in a different language. Arabic is one of the choices, so this is one more opportunity to build vocabulary and practice reading.

The particular help page I looked at asks the question:
كم عمر صور القمر الصناعي التي لديكم؟

كم (kam) - this is the question word, asking “how many”, “how much”, or in this case, “how old”

عمر (’umr) - age; this word can also be used as: كم عمرك؟ (kam umrak?) or “how old are you?”

صور (sur) - picture, image

قمر (qumar) - normally, this word means “moon”, but it can also refer to an artificial satellite, such as one that collects imagery

صناعي (sinaa’i) - artificial

التي (leti) - that, which

لديكم (ladikum) - you have

Thus, the question is asking “How old is the satellite imagery that you have?”

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:

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

This is a song by Tamer Hosny, Yara, Ramy Ayash, Ganat, and Haytham Shaker, called أمي ثم أمي (My mother, and then, my mother). Like many songs, this one is sung in Egyptian colloquial dialect, which helps to highlight differences in Egyptian colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic.

Here are the lyrics for the first line:

بعد الحب ده ايه الى تعمل كل ده تستاهل ايه بعد الحب ده ايه الى تدى حنان كده من غير حساب نبوس التراب الى مشيه عليه

With these words, the first line of the song roughly translates as:

“After this love
What does she does all of this deserve
After this love, what
She who gives affection like this without asking for anything in return;
We kiss the ground she walks upon”

Vocabulary

Here are some vocabulary words for family members and various places (of work):

Sentences

Here are some example sentences using these words. The verb عمل is in the “present” tense here, which means a prefix is attached (ي) for male, singular third person (”he”) and for female, singular third person (”she”), a ت is attached. And to make father, mother, brother, or sister possessive (e.g. “my brother”), a suffix is attached to the noun. In this case, the suffix is for first person singular (”my”), which is a ي.

والدي يعمل في مستشفى - My father works in a hospital.

والدتي تعمل في مدرسة - My mother works in a school.

أخي يعمل في المطار - My brother works at the airport.

أخي يعمل في مصنة - My brother works in a factory.

أختي تعمل في مطعم - My sister works in a restaurant.

أختي تعمل في متحف - My sister works in a museum.

Learning numbers in Arabic and how to use them is one of the more challenging aspects of learning the language. One reason they are difficult is that Arabic uses alternative digits (Hindi numerals), though sometimes the same digits used in English are used in Arabic.

- 0 (zero) - صِفْر (sifr)

- 1 (one) - واحد (wahid)

- 2 (two) - اثنان (ithnan)

- 3 (three) - ثَلاثة (thalatha)

- 4 (four) - أربَعة (arba’)

- 5 (five) - خَمْسة (khamsa)

- 6 (six) - ستًة (sitta)

- 7 (seven) - سَبْعة (saba’a)

- 8 (eight) - ثمانية (thamania)

- 9 (nine) - تسْعة (tisa’a')

- 10 (ten) - عَشَرة (ashara)

These numerals are used on money, sometimes on gas station signs to show the price, and other places. Here is a 100 Egyptian pound bill:

Now, listen to the Arabic numbers from one to ten:

In Arabic, there are both masculine and feminine forms of the numbers, with grammar rules about when to use which gender. Further discussion of this will come later.

توالي درجات الحرارة إرتفاعها التدريجي على معظم مناطق المملكة وسماء غائمة جزئياً على شمال المملكة وقد تظهر بعض السحب المنخفضة على مرتفعات جنوب غرب المملكة .

- Weather for March 2, 2008 - Saudi Arabia

Important words to know to understand a weather forecast:

توالي - to follow, come in succession, come continually, continue

درجات الحرارة - temperature (degrees of heat)

رَفَعَ - rafa’a - to lift, rise, elevate; A number of other words are derived from this verb, including رفعة (rif’a) - height; رفيع (rafi’) - high, high-ranking, loud; إرتفاع (irtafa’) - rise (of prices, temperature, …), increase, height, altitude.

تدريجيّاً (tadrijian) - gradually

معظم (moa’tham) - most

مناطق (manatiq) - areas

المملكة (al mamalika) - the Kingdom

With these words, the first part of the initial sentence translates as: “Temperatures continue to gradually rise in most areas of the Kingdom.”

سماء (samaa’) - sky

غائم (ghai’m) - cloudy

جزئياً (jazi’yan) - partly

شمال (shamaal) - north, northern

This part of the sentence translates as: “and partly cloudy skies in the northern Kingdom”

ظهر (thahara) - to appear, overcome

بعض (bau’da) - some

سحب (suhub) - clouds

منخفضة - low

جنوب (junub) - south

غرب (gharb) - west

The last part of the sentence translates as “some low clouds appearing in the southwest of the Kingdom.”

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: