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Belmasry is a podcast that presents an introduction to Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptian dialect is very popular in the Arab world, and is generally understood in the vast majority of...
show more
Belmasry is a podcast that presents an introduction to Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptian dialect is very popular in the Arab world, and is generally understood in the vast majority of Arabic-speaking countries.
The podcast focuses on speaking and understanding, rather than reading and writing, and we will not be teaching the Arabic alphabet but will rather use a modified Latin alphabet when needed.
show less
The podcast focuses on speaking and understanding, rather than reading and writing, and we will not be teaching the Arabic alphabet but will rather use a modified Latin alphabet when needed.
18 MAR 2018 · Welcome to "belmaṣri", a podcast introduction to Egyptian Arabic. My name is Karim, and I want to help you get acquainted with one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and one that is spoken by hundreds of millions of people on the planet.
I know it's been a while since the last episode. I need to put more time and make sure to dedicate time on a regular basis. You don't have to tell me. I know :-)
So in our last episode we started to speak some Egyptian. We learned how to say "good morning" and how to respond to this, and we also discussed some concepts, sounds, and structures that came out of that.
In the book, there are some more greetings mentioned. However, I would rather move on to something different. What I will do is to give you some of the greetings mentioned in the book quickly, just by saying them and telling you what they mean, then we will move on to a different topic.
So we already did "ṣabāḥ‿elxēr" (good morning) and the response to it, which is "ṣabāḥ‿ennūr". There are equivalent greetings for the evening, which are "masā'‿elxēr" (good evening), and "masā'‿ennūr"...and, yes, "masā'" means evening. The sound represented by an apostrophe is important. In Arabic that is a kind of letter (not exactly, but similar), and it's called a "hamza". It sounds kind of like if you were going to say a word that starts with the letter "a", but you were interrupted :-) That letter sometimes comes at the end of the word, and sometimes in the middle. At the beginning of a word it cannot come alone, but rather on top of the letter "alef", which is the equivalent of the letter "a". The sound is the same. For example, you may have heard the name "Ahmed". This name starts with the letter "alef" with a "hamza" on top of it. In our notation, it could be written "Aḥmad".
There's also other greetings and common phrases such as:
"Salāmo‿𝜀alēkom" which means "peace be upon you". This comes from the Islamic greeting "Assalāmu‿𝜀alaykum", but is generally used in a non-religious context. The response to this is "w‿𝜀alēkom‿essalām", which means the same thing, but with the words in the reverse order...so it would be something like "peace be upon you", and the response "and upon you be peace". The "w" is the letter "wāw" in Arabic, which, on top of being a letter, also means "and", and is often attached to the words around it so that it seems almost like a way to join words rather than a stand-alone word/letter...you can remember it like this. It means "and", and it brings words together.
Around eating and drinking there are also comon expressions you should know.
When you bring someone something to drink, and they drink it, you can say "haneyyan", which is a way of saying "I hope you enjoyed it". The response to this is usually "Allā‿yhannīk" (when talking to a male) or "Allā‿yhannīki" (when talking to a female). "Allāh" means God, and yehanni means to make someone happy/satisfied...so it something like "may God keep you happy and satisfied"...the expression and the response actually both come from the same root "hanā'", which means happiness/contentment/satisfaction. When we join "Allāh" to the following word, we kind of drop the "h" sound at the end, although it's not a strong sound in this case anyway.
Before you eat you can say "belhana‿w‿eṣṣefa". This is the equivalent of "Bon Apetit" or "enjoy your meal". "Belhana" goes back again to the same word used before for drinks..."hana". As discussed in episode 1, the "b" at the beginning means "with". "El" means "the" and "hana" means happiness/satisfaction. "Ṣefa" means healing...or health in this case I would say...so the phrase really says "with (the) enjoyment and (the) health", or "may you enjoy the food, and may it be good for you". The response is the same as before..."allā‿yhannīk(i)".
You may have noticed at the end of each podcast that I say "ma𝜀‿essalāma". That is another important phrase. It means good bye. Actually, literally it means "with safety" or "may you be safe" or "may you be well". The word "ma𝜀" means with, and "essalāma" means "the safety". Here you can see another example of replacing the "l" of "el", or "the" with the first letter of the word, so instead of saying "elsalāma", we say "essalāma". That's because the "s" sound, or the letter "seen" is one of the letters that are affected by the rule we discussed in episode 2.
OK. One more phrase. A nice thing to be able to say to someone is "congratulations". In Egyptian this is "mabrūk" and can be used in many situations (wedding, exam result, new job, new child...etc.). To emphasize this we can also say "alf mabrūk". The word "alf" means 1000, so it's something like "1000 congratulations". The response to this is "Allā‿ybarek feek(i)"...depending on whether you are speaking to a male or a female...or even "allā‿ybarek fīkom" if you are speaking to more than one person. This means, loosely translated, something like "May God bless you". You may have noticed a similarity between this structure and the one discussed above around food "Allā‿yhannīk(i)". The "y" here is just the conjugation of the verb in the third person singular present...but that's a story for another episode :-)
Well, I think that's going to be it for today...so I hope you are enjoying your journey learning Egyptian so far and, till next time, ma𝜀‿essalāma!
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to send me an e-mail to belmasri@posteo.org.
28 NOV 2017 · Welcome to "belmaṣri", a podcast introduction to Egyptian Arabic. My name is Karim, and I want to help you get acquainted with one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and one that is spoken by between 300 and 420 Million people worldwide.
In our second episode, we will start with our first few words in Egyptian. I will tell you some useful words and expressions, explain what they mean and when they can be used, and you will try to pronounce them, and hopefully learn them so you can impress the first Arabic speaker you meet :-) After explaining the phrase or word, I will say it again twice, giving you a few seconds to repeat after me. It’s very important to repeat the words yourself, and even better if you can do it outloud. This allows you to train your mouth on these new sounds, and it also allows you to hear yourself speak.
One hint that I believe is very useful when learning to speak a new language is to record yourself…recording your own voice and comparing it to a native speaker allows you to hear differences that help you identify where your deficiencies are. Often when speaking a foreign language, we think we are pronouncing well, because we hear our own voice inside our head, but not how it sounds to others. Comparing your own pronounciation with mine will give you an idea which sounds or letters you should focus on.
OK. Let’s get to some Arabic! We can start with some greetings.
To say “good morning” in Egyptian, we say “ṣabāḥ‿elxēr”.
The word “ṣabāḥ” means “morning”. “el”, as we mentioned in the last episode, means “the”. “xēr” means “good” (in the sense of good and evil), “goodness”, and also in a sense “blessing”, as in something good that comes or happens to you.
You’ve probably noticed that there is almost no break between the two words. This tends to happen in Arabic when a word starts with “el” - the. The previous word tends to be attached, so it sounds like it’s a single word. Do not be deceived :-) This is important when you talk to native speakers. You must try to find where a word ends and the next one begins. It also sounds great if you are able to do this yourself, as it makes you sound more like a native. This connection is represented by a “connector” between the two words as you can see in the transcript.
Now let’s break down the sounds. The word “ṣabāḥ” starts with the same heavy “s” sound that we met last episode in the word “belmaṣri”. You’ll also notice that the “a” sound is extended, and the word ends with a new sound, represented by an “h” with a dot underneath - ḥ. This is one of the sounds that I have encountered only in Arabic. It’s produced inside the throat, and the most similar letter to it would be an “h” in English, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s hard to describe how to produce it, but what I can tell you is that it feels like pronouncing an “h” in a stronger way. The “h” for me feels like it comes from a superficial place, like a whisper, but the “heavy h” comes more from the throat. Otherwise they are very similar. This is one of the letters where if you get stuck you can just pronounce it as an “h”. You will be understood.
The sound represented by an x is often also written as “kh”…like Genghis Khan. It’s also a sound that originates in throat...you will meet several sounds in Arabic that are this way.
Again the sound of the “e” in xēr is a long vowel sound, and that’s why it’s represented with a dash on top.
Now let’s leave the sounds and go a bit into the structure of the phrase. Literally translated, it would be “morning the good”, but really it’s more like “morning of the good”, or “morning of the blessings”…the “of” part is not really written, but in Arabic often when you have a word with no “el” or “the” in the beginning, followed by a word with an “el” or “the” in the beginning, there is often an implied “of”…it’s called “adding a word to a word” in Arabic. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, but just keep that in mind…an “indefinite” word followed by a “definite” word often implies this type of connection between the two words. Another example of this structure could be "ayyām‿essa𝜀āda". "Ayyām" means "days", and "essa𝜀āda" means "the happiness". The meaning of the phrase would be "days of the happiness", or more accurately "the days of happiness".
Now you try it. I will say the phrase twice, and leave you a few seconds to repeat after me.
OK enough with this phrase :-)
So how do we answer this greeting? If someone greets you saying “ṣabāḥ‿elxēr”, you reply saying “ṣabāḥ‿ennūr”. As you can see, the first part is quite similar, but instead of saying “morning of the blessings” (i.e. a blessed morning to you), you say “morning of the light” (i.e. a bright morning to you).
“nūr” means light, as you probably guessed. You may have noticed that when we say “the light”, we don’t say “elnūr” (just adding an “el” or “the” prefix), but rather we say “ennūr”. This is due to a quirk in how the “el” prefix works. Depending on the letter with which the word starts, the “l” sound or part of “el” can be replaced with the first letter of the word. This is the case for words that start with an “n” sound.
We will re-visit this topic in a future episode I’m sure, but just keep it in mind…nothing will happen if you say “elnūr”. People will still understand you.
Now you try it. I will say the phrase twice, and leave you a few seconds to repeat after me.
One more point to mention here is the sound of the letter “r” in Arabic. The “r” that we have is not very similar to the English “r”. The sound of the “r” in Arabic is pretty hard. This is often called a “rolling r”, and it’s the type of sound you find, for example, in the Spanish language, but it’s often not easy for people who don’t have that sound in their native language to pronounce it. What happens is that your tongue vibrates when you exhale, and that’s what makes the “trill” sound. The sound doesn’t have to be very long, but the sound is hard, and you have this movement with the tongue for a short period of time.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvement, just e-mail me at belmasri@posteo.org.
And, till then, ma𝜀‿essalama.
18 NOV 2017 · Welcome to "belmaṣri", a podcast introduction to Egyptian Arabic. My name is Karim, and I want to help you get acquainted with one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and one that is spoken by between 300 and 420 Million people worldwide...according to Wikipedia anyway :-) I decided to start this podcast because I love languages, and over the course of my journey learning them, I have met several people learning Arabic, my mother tongue. Speaking with those people opened my eyes to the fact that Arabic is not an easy language to learn...and moreover, that there are not so many resources available to learn it as a foreign language. As native speakers, as with all languages, we somehow absorb our mother tongue as children...we get it without really having to "learn" it...this is why quite often you will find that native speakers cannot explain a grammar rule to you. They just know the right way to say what they want to say, because it "sounds right" to them. This is probably why I never realised how difficult Arabic is until I met people who were trying to learn it as adults...they come to me with complaints about things that don't make sense to them...well also sometimes things that don't make sense at all :-) or rules that have too many exceptions, or (as is famous with Arabic) difficulties in pronunciation. I love Arabic, and I would like to see other people learn it and enjoy its richness. That's what this podcast is for. I've never done a podcast before, and so I can't really promise you too much. I guess we will start together and learn and improve together.
So...before starting to learn Arabic, some decisions need to be made.
The first question is simply "which Arabic?" Arabic is a very old language, and over the centuries, it has evolved differently in different parts of the Arab world. There are, therefore, many "Arabics" around. The "classical" version of Arabic that is currently used is often referred to as "Modern Standard Arabic" or MSA. This language is generally used in official communications, newspapers, the news bulletin on TV, most literature, and often on the radio when it comes to "serious" programming, like news or documentaries. This version is understood in all the Arab world...but it has one drawback. If you speak to someone in MSA, they are most likely to have a hard time keeping a straight face...it's generally not a spoken language, so if somebody would speak to me in the street in this Arabic, I would find it quite funny. Although I've sometimes gotten stuck having to fall back on this version of Arabic speaking to someone from Morocco or Algeria (where the native accent is very difficult, sometimes incomprehensible to me), but in general it is not very useful as a spoken language I would say. Aside from MSA, there are almost as many dialects of Arabic as there are Arabic-speaking countries. Saudi, Lebanese, Palestinian, Egyptian, Algerian, Moroccan, Jordanian...with varying degrees of similarity. For this podcast, I have decided to focus on Egyptian Arabic. Why? For several reasons. First of all, I'm Egyptian :-) So for me there are not so many options. But secondly, and more importantly, Egyptian Arabic is understood everywhere in the Arab world. I have not been in an Arab country where I've had trouble communicating in Egyptian. People might look at you in a kind of funny way a bit. They might mention to you a line from a famous Egyptian play, or answer you with a joke that they know from an Egyptian movie, but generally people react in a very positive way to Egyptian Arabic, and it's very well understood. Egypt has historically been the centre of culture in the Arab world...producing most films, music, literature...etc. I think it's for this reason that people all over can understand Egyptian. Moreover, I think learning to speak with people and understand them is more important than reading and writing, at least to start with, and so that automatically excludes MSA as a possibility...so we're left with a dialect, and as dialects go I believe Egyptian is the most reasonable choice.
The second question is how to learn it. Since the focus is going to be on speaking and listening, I think it makes sense to postpone the Arabic alphabet. It can come later...so for this podcast series we will focus on the interactive side of the language, and when writing we will use Latin characters rather than Arabic ones. It's really not necessary to start with the characters. It only makes things much more difficult, and it doesn't add a lot of value at this stage. Of course, later on, when you reach a point where you want to read a book in Arabic, or to read the street signs, or to read the newspaper, you will need to understand the written script, but to start with, we will not use Arabic characters. I will be following a book, but you don't need to buy it I think. I will try to get everything from the book into the podcast episodes. This book was created by the Dutch in order to teach Arabic in Amsterdam University. I think it has quite a solid structure to it, and uses an internally consistent system. In general I think it provides a good balance, and a good place to start. It's called "kullu tamam!" Which means, loosely translated, "everything is fine!"
I've put a link to the book at the bottom of the transcript.
I hope everything will be fine with this podcast, and you will soon start to speak Arabic.
Just to give you a quick flavour, "belmaṣri" means "in Egyptian". The initial "b" is a prefix that is added to a word and means "with" or, as in this case, "in". The next two letters "el" is another prefix, and it means "the". "maṣri" means, well, "Egyptian" :-) For example, if I wanted to say that I'm Egyptian, being a man, I would say "ana maṣri"..."ana" means "I", and in this case no verb is necessary. The verb "to be" is often implicit in Arabic this way. You will notice that we tend to put a lot of prefixes and suffixes to words, so in one words you can really say a lot about the person performing the action, and the person affected by it (the object)...etc. For example, a girl would say "ana maṣriyya". The suffix changes according to the gender. You will also notice that the "s" sound in "maṣri" is not like an English "s". It's quite a "heavy" s, which is referred to in the book as an "emphatic" s. Don't worry about the term "emphatic", if it sounds too serious or theoretical. It's just the way the book refers to it, so I thought it would be good to introduce it. The shape of the mouth is different with these two sounds. With the regular English "s", the mouth is kind of wide and flat, but with the heavy, or emphatic "s", it's more closed. You can try to replicate it by making the regular "s" sound, and while you're still exhaling, move your mouth as if you are about to kiss somebody :-) The heavy/emphatic "s" will be written as an s with a dot beneath it, so ṣ.
Another example. If I would introduce myself to someone, I could just say "ana Karīm", which would mean "I am Karim". Note that here the i has a dash above it to indicate that it's a long/extended vowel sound, so "Karīm", not "Karim".
Anyway...I wasn't planning to start teaching Arabic today :-) In the next episode we will start learning Arabic, so get ready! And, till then, ma𝜀‿essalama.
Oh, and one final thing. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvement, just e-mail me at belmasri@posteo.org.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111085.Kullu_Tamam_
Belmasry is a podcast that presents an introduction to Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptian dialect is very popular in the Arab world, and is generally understood in the vast majority of...
show more
Belmasry is a podcast that presents an introduction to Egyptian Arabic. The Egyptian dialect is very popular in the Arab world, and is generally understood in the vast majority of Arabic-speaking countries.
The podcast focuses on speaking and understanding, rather than reading and writing, and we will not be teaching the Arabic alphabet but will rather use a modified Latin alphabet when needed.
show less
The podcast focuses on speaking and understanding, rather than reading and writing, and we will not be teaching the Arabic alphabet but will rather use a modified Latin alphabet when needed.
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