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 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:

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.”

When learning a language, it is an enormous help to practice reading news articles and other things, and read a lot. BBC Arabic is a good source for news articles, in addition to their audio broadcasts. From time to time, I post excerpts from articles, look up words I don’t know, and practice reading. This article is about relations between the UK and Russia.

تفاقم الازمة الدبلوماسية بين لندن وموسكو - BBC News (January 2, 2008)

فقم (faqima) - to aggravate, escalate, become grave, serious, critical, dangerous, come to a head

أزمة (azma) - crisis

دبلوماسية (diblomasia) - diplomatic

بين (beyna) - between

The word order in the sentence is Verb-Subject (adjective)-Prepositional phrase. The verb فقم (faqima) is conjugated in the present tense, in the feminine-third person form by appending the “ت” to the beginning of the verb and it is pronounced with a damma (”u” sound) at the end of the word. The word also changes form here, with an added alif. The verb in this form, tense, and conjugation is pronounced “tafaaqimu”.

The word أزمة (azma) is a definite noun here, because it refers to a specific crisis. This is a feminine noun. The adjective دبلوماسية (diblomasia) must agree with the noun in gender and also be definite.

With these words, the headline translates as “The diplomatic crisis escalates between London and Moscow”.

The first sentence of this news article is ازدادت شدة التوتر في العلاقة الدبلوماسية بين موسكو ولندن عندما قام

ازداد (izdada) - increase

شدة (shadda) - strengthening, intensification, emphasis; شدة (shidda) - strength, forcefulness, power, intensity

توتر (tawattur) - tension, strain

علاقة (a’laqa) - relations, affiliation, association, …

This roughly translates as “Tensions have intensified in the relations between Moscow and London.”

More later…

BBC Arabic radio has a regular feature to teach some English language (اللغة الانجليزيه - lughata inglizia) to Arabic listeners. BBC also posts these audio clips on its website, along with accompanying written information. While intended for people learning English, these BBC features are useful the other way around, for learning Arabic, to hear the Arabic equivalents of the words spoken and how they are used in sentences.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/elt/newsid_7073000/7073727.stm (Segment from November 4, 2007)

In this segment, they discuss the words (كالمات) “prefer” (أفضل - afadil) which is a verb (فعل), and how it differs from the word “preference” (مفضلة - mufadila) which is a noun (اسم). For example, انا افضل الموز (I prefer bananas). Examples they use are music preferences, such as يفضل موسيقى الكلاسيكيه (yufadilu musica clasikia), “He prefer classical music”.

The segment also discusses the words “popular” (محبوب - mahbub) compared to “popularity” (شعبية - shabiya). For example, يتمتع محبوب (yatamatta mahbub) - “he enjoys popularity”, with the word used as a noun.

The segment ends with discussion of the English phrase, “to make your mind up”, using the Arabic word “to decide” (قرر - qarrara) and “decision” (قرار - qarar).

Hosam El Sokkari, head of BBC Arabic, has announced that the BBC will launch an Arabic-language television channel in the new year. This is on top of the BBC Arabic radio service (streaming online) and the BBC Arabic news website.

http://english.alarabonline.org/print.asp?fname=2007\12\12-06\zentertainmentz\971.htm

The radio broadcasts have already been useful to me, helping me learn pertinent (”in the news”) type vocabulary. such as سيارة مفخخة (car bomb) and الرئيس “al rees” (president), along with basic vocabulary including السنة “senata” - year and بين “beyna” - between. It also helps to reinforce what I have learned in class and studying with my texts.

Though, I learned of BBC Arabic streaming audio before I discovered excellent material on YouTube in Arabic, including videos that Al Jazeera posts. Hopefully, BBC Arabic will be posting videos on its website. Having pictures to go along with what they say is very helpful for picking up new vocabulary.