Dialogue

Vocabulary

Learn New Words FAST with this Lesson’s Vocab Review List

Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 11 - Do You Have What it Takes to be a Volunteer in the Arab World?
INTRODUCTION
Becky: Hi everyone, and welcome back to ArabicPod101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 11 - Do You Have What it Takes to be a Volunteer in the Arab World? Becky Here.
Hany: مرحبا I'm Hany.
Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the masculine plural form to talk about plural objects or a group of people. The conversation takes place at home.
Hany: It's between Mariam and Karim.
Becky: The speakers are friends, so they will use informal Arabic. Okay, let's listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
مريم: سمعت أنكم مشاركون في برنامج تطوعي ابتداءاً من هذا الشهر. أهذا صحيح؟
كريم: نعم! سنذهب إلى الأحياء الفقيرة و نساعد الأطفال هناك.
مريم: المسئولون عن تلك المناطق الفقيرة فقدوا الأمل منذ زمن. مساكين!
كريم: سنساعد الأطفال الموهوبين على تنمية مهاراتهم, و نعلم الأميين القراءة.
مريم: هذا رائع يا كريم. من معك في هذا البرنامج؟
كريم: تيم و مينا و غيرهما الكثير. إنهم متحمسون جداً!
مريم: آه, نسيت أن أخبرك بأهم شيء. اتصل تيم منذ قليل.
كريم: آه حقاً؟ ماذا قال؟
مريم: أراد أن يخبرك أن آخر ميعاد للتقديم لهذا البرنامج هو يوم الخميس.
Becky: Listen to the conversation with the English translation
Mariam: I heard that you are participating in a volunteer program starting this month. Is that right?
Karim: Yes, We're visiting the poor neighborhoods and helping the children there.
Mariam: The people responsible for these poor areas lost hope a long time ago. Those poor people...
Karim: We will help talented children develop their skills and teach illiterate people how to read.
Mariam: That's awesome, Karim. Who is with you in this program?
Karim: Tim and Mina and many others. They are very excited!
Mariam: Ah, I forgot to tell you the most important thing. Tim called a while ago.
Karim: Oh really? What did he say?
Mariam: He wanted to tell you that the deadline to apply for this program is on Thursday.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Becky: Hany, I heard that the volunteer community is a very active one in the Arab world, especially in Egypt.
Hany: That’s right, but it wasn't always like that. Following the Arab Spring, the media became a lot more honest about the real situation in the poor parts in Egypt, and journalists became free to follow more controversial stories and the real problems facing Egypt.
Becky: I suppose that raised awareness about poverty in Egypt, and motivated the youth to help solve that problem.
Hany: It did, yes. A large portion of the population lives below the poverty line.
Becky: What’s the Arabic for "below the poverty line"
Hany: تحت خط الفقر
Becky: Okay, now onto the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is..
Hany: مشارك [natural native speed]
Becky: participating
Hany: مشارك[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: مشارك [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: الأحياء [natural native speed]
Becky: neighborhoods
Hany: الأحياء[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: الأحياء [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: الفقيرة [natural native speed]
Becky: poor
Hany: الفقيرة[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: الفقيرة [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: مسئول [natural native speed]
Becky: responsible for
Hany: مسئول[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: مسئول [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: مسكين [natural native speed]
Becky: poor, pitiful
Hany: مسكين[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: مسكين [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: متحمس [natural native speed]
Becky: enthusiastic
Hany: متحمس[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: متحمس [natural native speed]
Becky: Next we have..
Hany: آخر [natural native speed]
Becky: another
Hany: آخر[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: آخر [natural native speed]
Becky: And last..
Hany: التقديم [natural native speed]
Becky: application
Hany: التقديم[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Hany: التقديم [natural native speed]
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is..
Hany: ابتداءاً من
Becky: meaning "starting from"
Hany: This expression is made up of 2 words - ibtidāʾan meaning "starting", and min meaning "from".
Becky: Whenever you want to say that you are doing, or will do a certain thing starting at a certain point in time, you use this expression, followed by the point in time you will start doing the thing. It’s also used to specify when a convention or a training program will start. Hany, can you give us an example using this word?
Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. سأسكن في نيويورك ابتداءاً من أكتوبر.
Becky: ..which means "I will live in New York starting in October." Okay, what's the next phrase?
Hany: فقد الأمل
Becky: meaning "lost hope"
Hany: This expression is made up of 2 words - faqada meaning "to lose", and al-amal meaning "the hope".
Becky: It's just like how you would say it in English, to "lose hope".
Hany: After this expression, the preposition fi meaning "in" has to follow if you want to specify what you lost hope in.
Becky: Can you give us an example using this word?
Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. لا تفقد الأمل في الحياة.
Becky: ...which means "Don't lose hope in life." Okay, what's the next phrase?
Hany: منذ قليل
Becky: meaning "a while ago"
Hany: This expression consists of two words - mundu meaning "since" and qaliil means "a little while".
Becky: All in all, it means "a little while ago". Use it to express that something happened a short time ago, usually not more than an hour or two ago. Can you give us an example using this word?
Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. طرقت بابك منذ قليل.
Becky: .. which means "I knocked on your door a little while ago."
Hany: If you want to talk about something that happened more than three hours or even a day or a week ago, it's better to use منذ فترة mundu fatrah
Becky: which means "a long time ago". Okay, now onto the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the masculine plural form to talk about plural objects or a group of people..
Hany: In the previous lessons, we covered all the verb types and forms in Modern Standard Arabic.
Becky: Now let’s move on to nouns and adjectives, and specifically, how to form the masculine plural regular form out of it. But before we start, you need to know the kinds of plural forms in Arabic.
Hany: There are three main plural forms - Regular plural masculine, Regular plural feminine, and Irregular plural neutral
Becky: The irregular plural neutral is the trickiest form in Arabic. It’s completely irregular, so you have to just memorize this plural form, because it has lots of patterns. Even native Arabic speakers get them wrong a lot of the time. Ok, let’s now focus on the regular plural masculine.
Hany: Like many Roman languages, if a certain adjective describes a noun, it has to be conjugated accordingly.
Becky: For example, if the noun is a plural masculine noun, then the describing adjective has to also be in the plural masculine form. Hany, let’s give an example from the dialogue.
Hany: For example, سَمِعتُ أَنَّكُم مُشارِكون في بَرنامِج تَطَوُّعي.
Becky: which means “I heard that you are participating in a voluntary program.”
Hany: let’s look at the 2 words annakum and mushaarikuun. First, annakum is made up of 2 parts- anna meaning “that”, and kum, the personal pronoun meaning “you all”.
Becky: This personal pronoun is the subject being described with the adjective...
Hany: ...mushaarikuun meaning “participating”. The singular form of mushaarikuun is mushaarik.
Becky: That leads us to the formula for creating the first possible plural masculine form
Hany:we add uun to the end of the adjective. Note that mushaarikuun has the vowelling state raf’ because its position in this sentence is habar anna.
Becky: We talked about that in Lesson 2
Hany: That’s right, when we were talking about the noun sentence, we saw that the mubtada’ and the habar are both in the state of raf’, which gives them a dammah final vowelling sign.
Becky: Wait, we also said that there are three conditions to respect in order for that to happen. One of these is that they have to be singular nouns or adjectives with NO suffixes.
Hany: Here we’ll see what takes place when it happens to be a masculine plural noun or adjective. Basically, the raf’ state affects masculine plural nouns or adjectives, by adding ون uun in the end
Becky: Let’s see some examples. Let’s consider the adjective meaning “good”
Hany: The singular is جيد and the plural masculine جَيِّدون (ǧayyid + ūn)
Becky: Now let’s consider the noun meaning “a teacher”
Hany: The singular is معلم and the plural masculine مُعَلِّمون (muʿallim + ūn)
Becky: Let’s see some other examples from the dialogue...
Hany: المَسئولون عَن تِلكَ المَناطِق الفَقيرَة فَقَدوا الأَمَل.
Becky: “The people responsible for these poor areas lost hope.”
Hany: Here, the word al-mas’uuluun المَسئولون follows the same form. It is mas’uul مَسئول + uun ون for the regular masculine plural in the raf’ state, because it is a mubtada’ of a noun sentence.
Becky: What’s another example?
Hany: إنَّهُم مُتَحَمِّسون جِدّاً!
Becky: “They are very excited!”
Hany: Here, the word mutahammisuun مُتَحَمِّسون follows the same form. It’s in the raf’ state because it’s habar inna.
Becky: Now let’s see another case with a different example from the dialogue.
Hany: و نُعَلِّمُ الأُمّيين القِراءَة
Becky: meaning “...and teach the illiterate how to read.”
Hany: As you can see, this is a new pattern. The word al-ummiyyiin الأميين meaning “the illiterate” was turned into the regular masculine plural form by adding an iin instead of an uun to its singular form.
Becky: Can you be more specific?
Hany: It is ummii الأمّي + iin ين for regular masculine plural in the nasb’ state, because it is in the object position, or maf’uul bihi’ position, in the verb sentence.
Becky: We talked about verb sentences in Lesson 3
Hany: Right, we explained how the object is always in a nasb vowelling state, and will be given a fat-ha final vowelling as long as it satisfies the usual 3 conditions.
Becky: So in this case, we’ll see what takes place when it happens to be a masculine plural noun or adjective.
Hany: Right, basically, regular masculine plural forms react differently to the nasb state. Instead of the fat-ha, it gets an added iin in the end. In other words, if the noun/adjective ISN’T in the raf’ state, the masculine plural suffix changes from uun into iin.
Becky: Let’s see some examples that are similar to the ones we looked at before. Let’s start with the adjective meaning “good”
Hany: The singular is جيد and the plural masculine is جَيِّدين (ǧayyid + īn)
Becky: Now let’s consider the noun meaning “a teacher”
Hany: The singular is معلم and the plural masculine is مُعَلِّمين (muʿallim + īn)
Becky: Let’s see some other examples from the dialogue:
Hany: سَنُساعِدُ الأَطفال المَوْهوبين.
Becky: “We will help the talented children.”
Hany: Here, the adjective al-mawhuub المَوهوب meaning “talented” follows the same form. It was turned into the regular masculine plural form mawhuubiin مَوهوبين by adding an iin ين instead of uun to the singular form.
Becky: Let’s wrap up this lesson by taking a look at how you can use these rules. Imagine you’re delivering a message from a group of male friends.
Hany: You just have to make sure you conjugate both plural masculine adjectives and nouns. For example قال أصدقائي أنهم مُهتَمّون بالعَمَل التَطَوُّعي.
Becky: “My friends said that they are interested in volunteer work.”

Outro

Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye!
Hany: شكرا

Comments

Hide