- انت عم بتصف معها (Enta 'am bitsaf ma'a) - You're taking her side.
- لساتك عم تتوحمي؟ (Lissaatik 'am tatwahhami?) - Are you still having cravings?
- انا بحبها لندا (Ana bahiba lanada) - I love Nada. (Only used in Lebanon)
- سلملي عليه (Sellimli 'alih) - Say hi to him for me.
- لا تفهمني غلط (La tafhamni ghalat) - Don't get me wrong.
- مقطوع من شجرة (Maqtoo' min shajara) - Cut from a tree (someone with no family).
- خيرها بغيرها (khayra bighayra) - Maybe some other time.
Please let me know if there's any way I can improve on these videos. Am I choosing phrases that you don't care about? Am I saying them too fast? I worry that someone beginning in Arabic might need more explanation. Am I explaining enough? Thanks much for watching and I hope you're learning something. :)
8 comments:
This is great. As a native speaker of Arabic, I can't tell if it's useful for learners but I follow a site (http://www.phrasemix.com/) which uses a very similar approach to the one that you use in these videos and I've learned a lot from it. Interestingly, whenever I see someone learn some idiomatic Arabic phrases like the one you explained in the video مقطوع من شجرة, I realize that we actually use this phrase in a figurative way. It's like the first time I have become aware of it.
انت قاعد توقف معها- would this phrase have the same meaning as,انت عم بتصف معها. Thank you.
Please just keep doing what you're doing. I'm enjoying your site.
I just want to say your posts are great! I really enjoy learning words that I may not pick up normally. Thanks!
Makkay, that site looks like it would be really useful for learning English. Sometimes I my first language was something other than English because there are so many materials for learning it. With Arabic, once you get to a certain level you just have to watch TV or live in an Arabic speaking country.
I'm sure there are a lot of English phrases that I use that are idiomatic that I haven't realized yet. As a kid I guess you just remember that 'this phrase means this' and don't think about the meanings of each word.
Anon1, yeah, that means the same thing. It wouldn't be used in Levantine dialect though because قاعد is more of a Gulf thing when used that way.
Anon2 & Anon3, I'm glad it's helpful to you!
I personally get a good deal out of your posts. These are often phrases that I can use when speaking with my hubby for practice. The songs and TV shows are very helpful. As always, thank you. I would love to know what your motivations are for learning so thoroughly, as well as teaching. Anyway, you are doing a great job and teaching very well:).
i'm a basic learner and your videos are very useful to me. thanks for posting them. may i ask about the phrase مقطوع من شجرة (Maqtoo' min shajara) - Cut from a tree (someone with no family)? do you know if this phrase is used anywhere else in the middle east? only syria? would a syrian (or armenian living in syria) apply it to a foreign tourist if they were traveling alone? is it derogatory in any way? any bad luck attached to it? would a syrian apply it to someone who has lost their relatives in the recent uprisings? or say it to someone as a threat as in "keep that up and you will find yourself an orphan"? i'm trying to understand the cultural connotations associated with it. thanks.
Thank you so much for a most excellent blog! You noted the Lebanese construction in which a pronoun suffix attached to a verb is followed by the noun (to which the suffix refers) preceded by a Lam. This is also found in Iraqi Arabic (at least in Baghdad). Some grammar books refer to the Lam inthis instance as the 'Lam of apposition'. Keep up the great work!
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