If I stilled lived in Mildenhall, UK, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

In English, 'news' would be singular in this context too. You would describe this 'news' with it, not they. The 'news' of a news broadcast is plural.

I would translate:
سمعت الخبر؟
You heard the news?

Simple Past
You heard the news?

Present Perfect
Did you hear the news?

This is one of those cases were English has grammatical rules that no one understands (blame the Germans since we got it from them).

I'm a believer in translating literally unless meaning/context is obvious. I also don't like inserting extra verbs or using a verb that is in the sentence in a tense not indicated by the original sentence.

Just my 2 cents, 2 pence, or whatever.

This is a very fascinating website for keeping up to date with the latest and greatest Colloquial Arabic!
http://en.mo3jam.com/

I think it's neat! Enjoy!
Tomes

In this lesson the Canadian guest asks an interesting question about Arabic punctuation marks. A partial answer to his question can be found in a book by Gérard Lecomte: "Grammaire de l'arabe" (Paris, PUF, 1980), p. 19. The question mark (known in Arabic as 'alaamatu-listifhaam) is of European origin. As far as I know, the question mark, the exclamation mark, the semi-colon and the comma were all introduced into Arabic in the nineteenth century. The fact that the Arabic question mark is a mirror image of the corresponding English mark can probably be explained by the fact that Arabic sentences are read backwards.

The use of the noun "khabar" in the sense of "news" is also interesting. "Khaber" is often employed as a grammatical term corresponding to Engl. "predicate". It is used in this sense in an excellent YouTube video where a very knowledgeable gentleman analyses sentences from the Qu'ran. I think Ehab has also used "khabar" in the sense of predicate in one of the upper intermediate podcasts.

The English word "news" also calls for a few remarks. "News" belongs to a small group of English nouns which function like Chinese nouns. They have neither a singular nor a plural. You can say "a newspaper", but you can't say "a news". You have to say "a piece of news". Other words that belong to this group are "information", "advice" and "furniture". We say "a piece of information", "a piece of advice" and "a piece of furniture" (not *"an information", *"an advice" or *"a furniture"). Plural forms like *"informations", *"advices" and *"furnitures" are incorrect, although they are often used by native speakers of French and German (cf. Fr. "des conseils", Ger. "Ratschläge", etc.). These deviant plurals are instances of negative transfer.

Tense usage in English and Arabic also needs to be examined in more detail. When native speakers of British English refer to the recent past, they tend to use the present perfect ("Have you heard the news?"). Americans, by contrast, are more likely to use the past tense ("Did you hear the news?").

Geoffrey says that nobody understands English grammatical rules. I think eminent linguists like Geoffrey Leech and Sir Randolph Quirk would disagree with this claim.

Geoffrey also says that English grammar has been influenced by German. I can think of only a few cases where this is true. Some information on this subject can be found in Brian Foster, "The Changing English Language", pp. 43, 93. Foster discusses the use of "warn against + NP" and "I wouldn't know".

Geoffrey's final remark on literal translation raises vast and intricate questions which I've already discussed in numerous articles published in French and German (e.g. "Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungsäquivalenz" and "La théorie fonctionnelle de la traduction").

Best wishes to all of you!
Desmond

The amount of information being shared here is amazing. Keep it up guys

Marhaba Mohamed!

I'm glad you're enjoying the lively debate triggered by your podcast.I've just thought of a solution to the translation problem posed by "ya wayla min abu". If you want to say that somebody is going to be punished you can use an idiomatic expression such as "he's in for trouble". Unfortunately, you can't add anything to this statement. You just have to put a full stop after "trouble". If you want to name the person who is going to mete out the punishment you have no choice but to reverse the perspective. In other words, the subject ("he") has to be moved to the end of the sentence and transformed into a direct object ("him"). The empty subject slot can now be filled by a noun phrase denoting the person who is going to mete out punishment ("his father"). Now all you need is a transitive verb that can set up a link between "his father" and "him". The best verb is "murder". A native speaker of English would say "His dad will murder him". If you put this sentence in inverted commas and run a Google search you'll find lots of examples from texts written by native speakers of English. It remains to add that similar expressions are used in French and German. The French say "Son père va le massacrer", and the Germans say "Sein Vater wird ihn totprügeln."

Best wishes
Desmond

Why is there no إضافة in the phrase "سيارةأبوه"? Also, shouldn't the phrase "من أبوه" be مجرور? Or are all rules of declension completely dropped in colloquial Arabic (I'm assuming this dialogue is colloquial). Thanks in advance for your explanation. جزاك الله خيرا.

Your assumption is right. In colloquial Arabic, most of the grammatical rules are wiped out. If that sentence was Fus7a (classical) Arabic, then as you highlighted the word (أبوه) would be (أبيه).

this is funny.. one of my guests took my car while i was sleeping and crashed it.
russian born, he got stuck in televiv for sometime during his formative years...i think he had some interesting hobbies while he was there because he says the term for "stolen car" in arabic is "sayarah ma7rooq" or maybe i misheard him... do you know the expression?

Marhaba Chel!

I know the word. He probably said "mashruuq". This word can be found in an online trilingual glossary (http://www.langsites.com).

Best wishes
Desmond

ahh shukran desmond!!

مسروقة (masruuqa, since we mean the car). The verb to steal is سَرَقَ.

ma7rooq means incinerated or something burning. 7reeq means fire.
I don't know the term "sayarah ma7rooq" but maybe it means the equivalent of 'hot car' (aka stolen) in some colloquial Arabic.

Would it be possible to have revision lessons consisting of the vocabulary from 2 or 3 basic lessons combined to form a revision lesson? To make it easier; if we had notice of the lessons to be used we could revise those lessons before hand??? By the way this is a great site and you are doing a fantastic job for Middle East tourism as well as breaking down those mythical cultural barriers. Thanks.

That is very good idea Neill, we'll take it in consideration and discuss it with the team.
Thanks for the suggestion.

i love this