July 3rd, 2009 15 comments
If you're one of those slow eaters, you probably find it very annoying when people finish before you and start leaving or cleaning the table. On the other hand, if you're one of those fast eaters then you must find it annoying to wait for your friends or family to finish before you can leave the dinner table. We talk about this unique subject for a podcast as well as go through the all important Arabic vocabulary in what we hope will be another fun ArabicPod lesson.

  4.9/5 (22 votes)


15 Comments
usmdrive says
Fri 3rd Jul 09@07:55 pm

سلام
can we say ببطء instead of ؟بطئ
Moshaya says
Fri 3rd Jul 09@08:10 pm

ببطء is an adverb and بطئ is an adjective

So you can say
أنت بطئ في الأكل – You’re slow at eating
Or
أنت تأكل ببطء – You eat slowly
jookieapc says
Sat 4th Jul 09@10:20 am

Hi guys

Formally I think you should say يا الله لذهب؟ the ل was necessary for a command. Is it colloquially acceptable to say it with the lam?

By the it's a bit hard to hear the ت at the end of ما زلت
Moshaya says
Sat 4th Jul 09@11:08 am

You can’t use the ل (lam) in place of ن . When you add ن as a prefix on the past tense verb ذَهَبَ. It changes the verb to present tense and the ن indicates "we" a first person plural form, so نَذْهَب means we go.

You can say لنذهب but this mean "for us to go". However, you can't have لنذهب together with يا الله, because it does not sound right to say 'come on for us to go'.
dubairocks says
Sat 4th Jul 09@04:54 pm

rebecca sheperd sounds really gormless
jookieapc says
Mon 6th Jul 09@03:21 pm

Sorry Muhammed - I forgot to include the ن. Thanks for answering the question. I suppose يا الله isn't totally informal anyway.
Mwanafunzi says
Tue 7th Jul 09@01:23 pm

I do not think you may say that, Dubairocks, in this sort of forum. Your comment is uncalled for, uncivil and out of place.
dubairocks says
Tue 7th Jul 09@03:06 pm

To be honest a couple of the guests really annoy me, from people sounding totally thick to other guests trying to explain arabic but confusing me even more. But forgenetly not all the guests are the same. No its not called for but it is my opinion.
Helen says
Sun 19th Jul 09@03:18 pm

Very good lesson; I like the dialogues with a guest who is learning as it helps clarify the pronunciation. It is almost like being in a classroom situation.
I still listen to all levels up to intermediate as there is always something new to learn! Keep up the good work smile)
Tue 21st Jul 09@10:54 am

i was born in kuwait but after the war between kuwait and iraq we left kuwait however we came again 6 years ago again cause most of the i spoke persian ( i am iranian) i haven`t learned arabic well, i found arabicpod interesting and i think it realy works
Ulrike says
Fri 31st Jul 09@06:44 pm

Hello there,
is "y'allah" sometimes still used in the original meaning of "oh god" – or did the phrase completely lose this meaning and is now solely used for "come on"?


Gcamblell says
Sat 1st Aug 09@12:10 am

Hello!
I was just looking on several different translation sites and whenever I put in the phrase "الا ترى" the translation never came out as "Don't you see" it usually said that it meant something like "Not see". One other thing that confused me is when I translated "Don't you see" into Arabic and it said "لا ترون". I wonder if some could maybe explain this to me?

P.S. I Love your system of teaching Arabic guys and keep up the good work!

!شكرا لك

Ehab says
Sat 1st Aug 09@06:50 pm

Ulrike, Yallah it is still used as (Oh God) except that the (Ya) is stretched more, so it is pronounced as Yaa Allah. We normally say it when we see something unusual or something weird happens.
Gcamblell, the translators that are available online are just softwares, so they can't really do the job properly. I tried some of those sentences and the results made me laugh as they were logically and grammatically wrong!! I would suggest you to stick with what we teach here wink
jookieapc says
Sun 2nd Aug 09@06:03 pm

Check out translate.google.com and translate عربي into English. The result is "English"!!

Maybe too much detail for a beginners class but if you're interested Gcamblell

الا ترى
means "don't you see" because ا is a question particle to make a question. So you get

ا = question -> do?
لا = not
ترى = you see

Don't you see?

Wed 20th Jan 10@03:44 am

Hi all. Goodness I've been saying "Yellah" for years and it just clicked that it contains ALLAH. It IS a good word!
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