Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
May: مرحباً اسمي مي.
Danya: و أنا دانيا.
Timothy: Timothy here! Beginner, Lesson 8 - I don't know. أهلاً بكم, hello, everybody, today we're joined by Danya and May.
May: Welcome back to ArabicPod101.
Timothy: With us, you'll learn to speak Arabic like a native.
Danya: We also provide you with cultural insights and tips you won't find in a textbook.
Timothy: Last time, we learned how to say I speak English and I speak Arabic.
Danya: هل تتكلمين العربية؟
Timothy: Do you speak Arabic?
May: نعم, أتكلم العربية.
Timothy: Yes, I speak Arabic.
May: و أنت يا تيموثي هل تتكلم العربية؟
Timothy: And you, Timothy, do you speak Arabic? نعم أتكلم القليل من العربية. Yes, I speak a little Arabic. What are we going to cover today?
Danya: Well last time we listened to a girl asking for directions.
May: But she didn't know how to ask in Arabic.
Danya: So we're going to show you how.
Timothy: Okay. Be sure to use the line-by-line audio in the learning center. The conversations are broken down into comprehensible bite size sentences you can listen to at your own convenience. Simply click on the flash button and listen to the recordings of native Arabic again and again until every word and syllable become crystal clear. Let's get in to today's conversation.
May: My friend, Fatima is in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and she wants to go shopping.
Danya: Unfortunately, she's lost. So she'll stop somebody and ask them for help.
May: This is a polite, casual conversation in standard Arabic.
Timothy: Okay. And we'll focus on how to say, I don't, as in I don't see it.

Lesson conversation

فاطمة: عفوا، هل تعرفين أين برج المملكة؟
ريما: طبعا أعرف. هو هناك.
فاطمة: أين؟ لا أراه
ريما: هناك. إنه ذلك البناء الكبير.
فاطمة: أوه! إنه كبير جدا.
Eric: One more time with the translation.
فاطمة: عفوا، هل تعرفين أين برج المملكة؟
Timothy: Excuse me, do you know where Kingdom Tower is?
ريما: طبعا أعرف. هو هناك.
Timothy: Of course I know. It's over there.
فاطمة: أين؟ لا أراه
Timothy: Where? I don't see it.
ريما: هناك. إنه ذلك البناء الكبير.
Timothy: There. It is that big building over there.
فاطمة: أوه! إنه كبير جدا.
Timothy: Wow, it is very big.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Timothy: So how tall do you think Kingdom Center is?
May: I don't know, but that girl must be blind because you can see it before you even get into the city.
Timothy: Well maybe another building was blocking the view.
Danya: I'm not too good with guessing heights, but I know for a fact that it's 992 feet tall. And interestingly, it's the tallest building in the world under 50 floors.
Timothy: Okay. So how did you know that?
Danya: Because I prepared, Timothy.
Timothy: Going on. So the full name of Saudi is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
May: Yes. In Arabic, it's المملكة العربية السعودية
Danya: المملكة العربية السعودية
Timothy: Okay, so that uses the same word as Kingdom Tower, برج المملكة
May: Yeah. المملكة means Kingdom.
Timothy: So the name of the building could actually be translated as Tower of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
May: No. Actually the name of the tower comes from the company which owns it.
Timothy: So what's in the Kingdom Tower?
May: There's a huge shopping mall, there's four seasons hotel, there's a big sports center, a luxurious condo complex and offices.
Timothy: Do you know what's at the very top?
Danya: The very top part of the building is a public deck that overlooks the whole city of Riyadh.
Timothy: Okay. So what can you see?
May: You can see the other really tall tower, Al Faisaliah. It's not as high as Kingdom Center though.
Danya: It's not too far from الممكلة. If Al Faisaliah Tower looks more like a tall pyramid and there's a big ball at the very top, that's actually a revolving restaurant.
Timothy: That's cool.
Danya: Yeah, it's really cool.
Timothy: So what is برج المملكة look like?
Danya: It looks like a modern bottle opener.
Timothy: Okay, so we'll provide a link to a picture in the comments.
Danya: Yeah.
Timothy: And why is Kingdom Tower culturally significant?
Danya: Initially when it was built, it was supposed to be an iconic symbol of Saudi Arabia. It's the first skyscraper actually in the country.
Timothy: Oh really?
Danya: Yeah. And Al Faisaliah Tower is built before it but المملكة stands higher. So Emporis, a German company awarded them in 2002 for being the best design of the year.
VOCAB LIST
Timothy: All right, let's get into the vocab now. First, we have a proper name.
Danya: برج المملكة [natural native speed]
Timothy: The Kingdom Tower.
Danya: برج المملكة [slowly - broken down by syllable]. برج المملكة [natural native speed]
Timothy: And what's the next word?
May: طبعا [natural native speed]
Timothy: Of course.
May: طبعا [slowly - broken down by syllable]. طبعا [natural native speed]
Timothy: And now we have a verb.
Danya: أعرف [natural native speed]
Timothy: I know.
Danya: أعرف [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أعرف [natural native speed]
Timothy: Okay, let's hear you know, masculine.
May: تعرف [natural native speed]
Timothy: You know (masculine).
May: تعرف [slowly - broken down by syllable]. تعرف [natural native speed]
Timothy: And the feminine.
Danya: تعرفين.
Timothy: So what's he next word?
May: هو [natural native speed]
Timothy: He (it).
May: هو [slowly - broken down by syllable]. هو [natural native speed]
Timothy: Okay, what's the next word?
May: هناك [natural native speed]
Timothy: Over there.
May: هناك [slowly - broken down by syllable]. هناك [natural native speed]
Timothy: Okay, so what's the next word?
Danya: ذلك [natural native speed]
Timothy: That (over there).
Danya: ذلك [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ذلك [natural native speed]
Timothy: And the next word?
May: بناء [natural native speed]
Timothy: Building.
May: بناء [slowly - broken down by syllable]. بناء [natural native speed]
Timothy: Okay, now we've got an adjective.
Danya: كبير [natural native speed]
Timothy: Big or large.
Danya: كبير [slowly - broken down by syllable]. كبير [natural native speed]
Timothy: And our last word?
May: جدا [natural native speed]
Timothy: Very.
May: جدا [slowly - broken down by syllable]. جدا [natural native speed]
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Timothy: Okay, now let's take a closer look at the usage for some of these words and phrases. The first word we had was the Kingdom Tower.
Danya: برج المملكة. This is a proper name. It consist of two words, برج which is tower in Arabic and المملكة meaning kingdom.
Timothy: The kingdom.
Danya: Right.
Timothy: What's the next word?
May: طبعا
Timothy: Of course. What are some situations where we might respond with طبعاً?
May: If you're saying are you ready and the person would answer of course, they would say طبعاً.
Timothy: What else?
Danya: Do you like broccoli, Timothy?
Timothy: طبعاً لا
Danya: طبعاً لا, of course not.
Timothy: So طبعا sounds a lot like another word that I'd like to use تعبان.
Danya: No, no, no.
May: No.
Danya: Don't confuse people. There's a world apart.
Timothy: Okay, so let's hear that pronunciation.
Danya: تعبان
Timothy: I'm tired.
Danya: طبعا
Timothy: Of course.
Danya: Very different word.
Timothy: So the difference is the order of the letters.
Danya: And the letters.
Timothy: Oh, the letters are actually different?
Danya: So طبعا is ط ب ع ا.
Timothy: And it means?
Danya: Of course. And تعبان, ت ع ب ا ن, so very different words.
Timothy: That means, I'm tired.
Danya: Right.
Timothy: Let's go on to the next word.
May: أعرف
Timothy: I know. Can we get an example?
May: أعرف أنك تكره القرنبيط يا تيموثي
Timothy: I know that you hate broccoli, Timothy. Let's hear another example. Do you know منيا?
Danya: هل تعرف منيا؟
Timothy: Let's hear that new verb form again?
Danya: تعرف
Timothy: You know, masculine. Okay. And how would we ask a woman?
May: هل تعرفين مينا؟
Timothy: Okay, can we hear that new verb form?
May: تعرفين؟
Timothy: Okay, let's compare the two.
May: تعرف.
Timothy: You know, masculine.
May: تعرفين.
Timothy: You know, feminine. Okay, what's the next word?
May: هو
Timothy: He.
Danya: In this conversation it means it as in the building because Arabic doesn't have a word for it. It's either he or she.
Timothy: Can we hear that example sentence again from the dialogue?
Danya: هو هناك.
Timothy: It's over there. So that leads us to our next word.
May: هناك
Timothy: Over there. So هناك means there as in like across the street or on the other side of the room, just really far away from where you're at.
Danya: Right somewhere but you can still see it.
Timothy: But if you're trying to talk about something that's close to the person you're talking to as in put it there, meaning put it down next to where the person is.
Danya: ضعه هناك.
Timothy: So it doesn't matter if it's close to you or farther away, as long as you're saying there, it's هناك.
Danya: The same way you'd use here and there in English is the same way you'll use it in Arabic, هنا, here, هناك, there.
Timothy: هناك is actually used in a different way.
Danya: Yes, it could be used to mean there are or there is.
Timothy: So like the existence of something.
Danya: Exactly. So there are different types of podcasts, هناك أنواع عديدة من البرودكاستس.
Timothy: All right.
Danya: So presenting a fact or something that exists.
Timothy: Just like in English, we use there are to say something is this, there are different podcast, in Arabic, we use هناك
Danya: Right.
Timothy: What's the next word?
May: ذلك
Timothy: Over there. So this is used for objects that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. But what if we want to say like that, like this is a piece of paper. It's in my hand.
Danya: هذه ورقة
Timothy: So if it's close to the speaker, use هذه. If it's close to the listener, هذه, but if it's far from both of them, then we're going to use تلك, so that's a feminine form for هذه.
Danya: Right.
Timothy: All right, let's hear that word again, تلك
Danya: تلك
Timothy: Over there, feminine. What's the next word?
May: بناء
Timothy: Building. It just means a building.
May: Do you hear the hamza at the end of بناء?
Timothy: Oh, actually I didn't hear that.
May: Yeah, you see me like stop after the L. If I don't stretch that, if I'll say بناء, so there's a hamza at the end of بناء.
Timothy: Oh thanks. Okay, what's the next word?
Danya: كبير
Timothy: Big or large. Okay, So what are some ways that we can use كبير?
Danya: If you're talking about non-living objects, it's used usually to describe size. So if you're talking about the building size, as in our dialogue, the big building, بناء كبير.
Timothy: Okay.
Danya: But we wouldn't use it to describe people's sizes as كبير unless we specify in a word after it that we mean big in body mass or big in size.
Timothy: All right. Now, let's go on to the last word.
May: جداً.
Timothy: All right, this is a word I really like. Whenever I do something good in class, my teacher always says, جيد جداً.
Danya: Very good.
Timothy: Let's hear some more examples.
May: We could say, this car is very fast, هذه السيارة سريعة جداً.
Danya: Another example would be the meeting is very short, هذه المقابلة قصيرة جداً.
Timothy: Okay, so how about he's very old, هو جداً كبير.
May: No, it's هو كبير جداً
Danya: The جداً has to go after the adjective. It's opposite of the English.
Timothy: Okay, so we just gave a couple of examples. Some were masculine and some were feminine. We always use جداً.
May: Yeah, it never changes.
Danya: But you can use it for anything that's feminine or masculine.
Timothy: Just like in English, very is very is very, جدا, جدا جدا
Danya: Right. It doesn't matter, yeah.
Timothy: All right, let's move on to today's grammar point.

Lesson focus

Timothy: Today's grammar point is negating verbs in the present. Negating a verb in the present in Arabic is really easy. All you have to do is say لا before the verb.
Danya: أدرس
Timothy: I study or I am studying.
Danya: لا أدرس
Timothy: I don't study or I am not studying. How is this used in the dialogue?
May: أراه
Timothy: I see it.
May: لا أراه
Timothy: I don't see it. So لا can be added to your drill conversations to make them a little more interesting. All right, let's get an example.
May: هل تعرفين تيموثي؟
Timothy: Do you know Timothy?
Danya: نعم أعرف تيموثي.
Timothy: Yes, I know Timothy?
Danya: هل تعرف الدكتور أحمد؟
May: Do you know Dr. Ahmad?
Timothy: لا, لا أعرف الدكتور أحمد.
May: No, I don't know a Dr. Ahmad.
Timothy: هل تعرفين أين مفتاحي؟
Danya: Do you know where my key is?
May: لا,لا أعرف اين مفتاحك.
Danya: No, I don't know where your key is.

Outro

Timothy: All right, that just about wraps up things for today. Drastically improve your pronunciation with the voice recording tool in the premium learning center. Record your voice with a click of a button and play back what you record just as easily. This tool is a perfect compliment for the line-by-line audio.
Danya: مع السلامة.
May: إلى اللقاء.
Timothy: Until next time.

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