Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Danya: مرحباً, أنا دانيا.
May: و أنا مي.
Timothy: Timothy here! Beginner Series, Lesson 15 - Cars. Hello, and welcome to the Beginner Series at ArabicPOD101.com, where we study modern Arabic in a fun, educational format!
Danya: So, brush up on the Arabic that you started learning long ago, or start learning today and join us for this lesson of ArabicPOD101.
Timothy: Thanks for being here with us for this lesson.
May: The focus of this lesson is making lesser comparisons.
Danya: This conversation takes place in a car showroom.
Timothy: Okay, the conversation is between تالا which will be played by May and رشا which will be played by Danya.
May: This conversation is in standard Arabic.
Timothy: Drastically improve your pronunciation with the voice recording tool in the premium learning center.
Danya: Record your voice with a click of a button, and playback what you record just as easily. This tool is the perfect complement to the line-by-line audio.
Timothy: Let's listen to today's conversation

Lesson conversation

تالا: أوه، هذه السيارة الحمراء هي الأجمل!
رشا: إنها جميلة، ولكن أليست هذه الزرقاء أجمل من الحمراء؟
تالا: لا، إنها بجمال الحمراء.
رشا: حسنا، أي سيارة أسرع؟
تالا: الزرقاء ليست بسرعة الحمراء.
رشا: أليست السيارة الحمراء أغلى سيارة هنا؟
تالا: في الواقع، إنها الأقل غلاء.
Eric: One more time with the translation.
الآن مع الترجمة.
تالا: أوه، هذه السيارة الحمراء هي الأجمل!
Timothy: Wow, that red car is the most beautiful!
رشا: إنها جميلة، ولكن أليست هذه الزرقاء أجمل من الحمراء؟
Timothy: It is beautiful, but isn't this blue one more beautiful than the red one?
تالا: لا، إنها بجمال الحمراء.
Timothy: No, it's just as beautiful as the red one.
رشا: حسنا، أي سيارة أسرع؟
Timothy: Well, which car is the fastest?
تالا: الزرقاء ليست بسرعة الحمراء.
Timothy: The blue one is not as fast as the red car.
رشا: أليست السيارة الحمراء أغلى سيارة هنا؟
Timothy: Isn't the red car the most expensive car here?
تالا: في الواقع، إنها الأقل غلاء.
Timothy: Actually, it's the least expensive one.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Timothy: So do you have a car in Jordan?
May: No because I moved here when I was 13, so I didn't drive.
Timothy: What about you?
Danya: I shared a car, yeah, with my brothers.
Timothy: Yeah, what kind?
Danya: Mercedes.
Timothy: Mercedes?
Danya: Yeah.
Timothy: Seriously?
Danya: Yeah.
Timothy: Oh man, I'm talking with someone who has money. What color is it?
Danya: Dark blue.
Timothy: Dark blue?
Danya: Electric blue, yeah.
Timothy: That's an import car, obviously. Are there cars that are manufactured in the Middle East?
Danya: Not that I know of.
Timothy: You can't think of any? They're all imports, huh?
Danya: Yeah. Well they were talking about producing a Syrian-Iranian car two years ago, but I never heard anything about that afterwards, so.
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Timothy: All right, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
Danya: سيارة [natural native speed]
Timothy: Car.
Danya: سيارة [slowly - broken down by syllable]. سيارة [natural native speed].
May: جميل [natural native speed]
Timothy: Beautiful.
May: جميل [slowly - broken down by syllable]. جميل [natural native speed]
Danya: حمراء [natural native speed]
Timothy: Red.
Danya: حمراء [slowly - broken down by syllable]. حمراء [natural native speed]
May: زرقاء [natural native speed]
Timothy: Blue.
May: زرقاء [slowly - broken down by syllable]. زرقاء [natural native speed]
Danya: حسنا [natural native speed]
Timothy: OK.
Danya: حسنا [slowly - broken down by syllable]. حسنا [natural native speed]
May: سريع [natural native speed]
Timothy: Fast.
May: سريع [slowly - broken down by syllable]. سريع [natural native speed]
Danya: غالي [natural native speed]
Timothy: Expensive.
Danya: غالي [slowly - broken down by syllable]. غالي [natural native speed]
May: في الواقع [natural native speed]
Timothy: Actually.
May: في الواقع [slowly - broken down by syllable]. في الواقع [natural native speed]
Danya: قليل [natural native speed]
Timothy: Little.
Danya: قليل [slowly - broken down by syllable]. قليل [natural native speed]
Timothy: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Danya: The first word we're going to look at today is سيارة.
Timothy: That's a feminine word right?
Danya: Yes,
Timothy: And since adjectives and nouns agree in gender we had to use the feminine form for the word red.
Danya: Yes, so the red car is السيارة الحمراء
Timothy: Okay. What's the masculine form?
Danya: أحمر.
Timothy: Okay, let's look at the word for blue.
Danya: In the dialogue we said the blue car - السيارة الزرقاء.
Timothy: Again, using the feminine form for blue.
Danya: Right, زرقاء is feminine and أزرق is the masculine.
Timothy: Okay. What's the next word?
Danya: جميل.
Timothy: So that's the masculine form for beautiful, but we used the feminine form in the dialogue.
Danya: Yes, because again, cars are feminine in Arabic.
Timothy: We also used جميل in a couple of other forms.
Danya: We said أجمل which is more beautiful, and جمال which means beauty.
Timothy: Okay and we'll talk more about how these different forms are related in the grammar point.
Danya: The next phrase is في الواقع which means actually.
Timothy: Can you break that phrase down word for word?
Danya: Word for word it means in reality في الواقع.

Lesson focus

Timothy: Let's get into today's grammar point. Today's grammar point is lesser comparisons. Sometimes when we're comparing two things, we find out that they are the same like if we're comparing the heights of two men, we'll find out they're at the same height. We say, ""John is as tall as Steve."" Or if John was shorter, we could say, ""John is not as tall as Steve."" In English we used the same word, but in Arabic, we're going to use a different form of the adjectives.
Danya: We would use a noun form like طويل would be the adjective. طول is a noun, so for making lesser comparisons, we're going to use a noun form, not the adjective form. We wouldn't use طويل. We would use طول.
Timothy: So how do we form that noun form of the adjective?
Danya: There isn't one pattern, words fall into different groups or categories, but today, we're going to present the most common ones.
May: Okay. Let's review the ones we have in the dialogue. The first one جميل and جمال. جميل is the adjective and جمال is beauty which is the noun.
Timothy: So they have the same root letters,ج م ل but the vowels on the inside of the word are different?
May: Right. جميل, the only thing that changed is instead of the ي in the word جميل, we took out the ي and added an ا and made it جمال. And then there is سريع which is the adjective form for fast and then سرعة is the noun. Instead of having a فتحة on the first letter of the س, we have a ضمة and the noun سرعة. Instead of having a ي, we took out the ي and added the تاء مربوطة after ع. And the last word is غالي which is expensive. The adjective form is غالي. The noun is غلاء We took out the ا and added the (ء) at the end.
Timothy: Okay, so we had beautiful and beauty, جميل, جمال. We have fast and quickness and then we had expensive and expense or the cost.
May: Exactly.
Timothy: Can we have another pattern?
May: Sure, there is كريم which is generous and كرم which is generosity. We basically took out the ي on the adjective and made it a noun.
Timothy: Is that the same pattern as جميل,جمال?
May: No. For جميل and جمال, we added an ا. We replaced the ي with an ا. For كريم and كرم, we just took out the ي and didn't add an ا.
Timothy: So there is a سكون between the ر and the م?
May: No, there's a فتحة.
Timothy: There's a فتحة.
Danya: So there's really not one pattern. It's just that words fall into different groups and there's not one pattern that's more common than the other. It's just that's how they are.
May: Yeah. So you just have to memorize your vocab.
Danya: Yeah. And if you have trouble, you can always use a dictionary.
Timothy: Okay, so let's do a couple more patterns.
Danya: طويل, طول
Timothy: So tall and height.
Danya: Right, exactly.
Timothy: So how is that pattern formed?
Danya: طويل. we took out the ي and put the ضمة on the ط. so it became طول instead of having a فتحة on the ط.
Timothy: First letter ضمة, second letter, third letter. Are there more examples?
Danya: صغير, صغر
Timothy: That's small and smallness.
May: And there's also كبير and كبر.
Danya: Same idea as صغير
May: Yeah, you just put a ضمة at the first letter and take out the ي. And there is also قصير and قصر.
Timothy: So that's short and shortness.
May: And shortness, yes.
Timothy: Okay.
May: رفيع and رفع.
Timothy: Skinny and health and thinness?
May: Yeah.
Timothy: The translations of these nouns really aren't so important. It's more of the usage of the noun.
May: Exactly.
Timothy: And we'll talk about that after two more examples.
May: قليل, قلًة.
Timothy: So a little and…
May: Small in amount.
Danya: Yeah, small in amoun.
Timothy: Like few and fewness.
Danya: Right.
Timothy: But for mass nouns?
Danya: Right. كثير, كثرة.
Timothy: So a lot and the a lotness. Yeah, again, the definitions of these nouns or the translations in English, they're not really so important. What's important is how you use the noun forms in Arabic. So how do we use these noun forms?
Danya: جون بطول ستيف.
Timothy: Okay, John is not as tall as Steve.
Danya: جون ليس بطول ستيف. And you noticed that we added a حرف جر or a preposition ب to the noun.
Timothy: Right.
Danya: So, right, بطول, so we won't just say جون طول ستيف. You would say جون بطول ستيف.
Timothy: Okay, just like we say John as tall as.
Danya: As, right.
Timothy: Right. In Arabic, it's B and then the adjectives.
Danya: It's B.
Timothy: Or it's the noun form of the adjective.
Danya: Right.
Timothy: Let's hear some more examples.
May: If I want to say سالي بجمال أمبر.
Timothy: Sally is as beautiful as Amber.
May: جون بكرم كريس.
Timothy: John is as generous as Chris. And it's also used for negative comparisons.
Danya: Right. تيموثي ليس بقصر دانيا. Timothy is not as short as Danya.
Timothy: That's another statement.
Danya: Okay. I'm not short by the way. I'm average.
Timothy: That makes me freakishly tall. Thanks.

Outro

Timothy: Well that's all the time we have for today.
May: So if you have a question or some feedback, please leave us a comment.
Timothy: It's really easy to do. Just stop by ArabicPod101.com, click on comments, enter your comment and tell us your name and that's it.
May: إلى اللقاء.
Danya: مع السلامة.
Timothy: Until next time.

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