Practicing speaking is the surest way to automatically use the correct gender of new vocabulary. Have you ever tried using Skype, AIM, or Messenger to learn languages?

By the way, هذا and هذه can mean either ‘this’ (close to the speaker) or ‘that’ (close to the listener). To say ‘that’ (far from speaker and listener) you can say: تِلْكَ - tilka (feminine) or ذالِكَ - dhaalika (masculine).

There certainly are different names for cell phones in the different regions of the Middle East. In Tunisia and in the gulf area, countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE, it is usually called جَوّال - jawwaal. In Jordan it is usually called mobile or خَلَوِي - khalawi (means cellular in Arabic). In Lebanon it is called cellular (in a French accent). In Syria it is usually called mobile. In Northern African region, Egypt for example, it is called a mobile or مَحْمُول - maHmoul (portable).

For those who are a bit confused with the whole use of French in Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria & Morocco) and Lebanon,
This region was occupied by France during the first half of the 20th century, and as some of you might know, the French care a lot about their language and culture that they like to spread it as much as they could, so they’ve turned the language of education in these countries into French, thus making the French language a vital part of daily life over there.

Currently, these countries (the Maghreb region specifically) are more connected to the French culture and media than others, people on the street could speak French fluently, so French could be considered a first language over there on par with Arabic!

Also commenting on the name of cellphones, in Egypt, the official name is maHmoul محمول, but you rarely encounter someone on the street calling it that, everybody calls it “Mobile”, no matter what their social status are, though the accent might vary a bit as some might pronounce it as “Mobael”, but it’s still the same word, I guess!

@anitagomez: I’m sorry, but was that verb you’re asking about is yastaHeq يستحق, as in to deserve?

Yes, yastaHeq يستحق is the present form of istaHaq استحق
But yeah, don’t think about conjugations at the moment, Arabic grammar is pretty complicated, so you should take those little doses provided by Apod team one by one, this is the perfect way to help introducing you to Arabic grammar, step by step!

Yay, Hyunwoo is learning Arabic…marhaban (welcome), Hyunwoo!

Fawzy - the French influence in Algeria is lessening compared to the other former colonies. This is because French was replaced by Arabic as the language used to teach everything in the schools since independence. The older generation speaks French better than the younger generation now. My sisters-in-law who live there are losing their French rapidly, and I have trouble communicating with them There are still lots of borrowed French words in their everyday speech though.

Hyunwoo, I may know things about Arabic grammar, but you’ve got me beat as far as typing goes. I have not found any patience yet to learn Arabic typing! Someone is going to have to show up at my house and drag me kicking and screaming to force me to do it. But I remember feeling that way about typing Korean in the beginning, and now I can type Korean better than I can type French. So it’s a matter of sitting down to *just do it*.

Bouks, I know, Algeria has concentrated more on restoring the Arabic language, upon declaring their independence in the ’60s, Egypt sent many Arabic language teachers to help rebuild the language over there, as you said, the elders speak it better, but the influence of the French language on the local dialect could not be missed!

Hyunwoo, I’m really glad that you’re taking an interest in my native language, I’ve been struggling with Korean for a while now, thanks to KoreanClass101, I have to say that to me, Korean was the most challenging language of all, but I couldn’t even imagine how tough it could be for a Korean to learn Arabic, good luck man!

Sorry, Fawzy! I didn’t mean to give you a history lecture on something you know better about I just wanted to share my experience. (I was disappointed to find that so few Algerians spoke French anymore!) I didn’t know about the teachers brought in from Egypt, that is interesting…especially since the dialects are so different.

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