Beginner - Back to school

بسرعة is actually an adverb here. It is describing the verb تذهب .

أسف from (للأسف in the dialogue) is a good verb to know. It is used for 'I'm sorry'.

أنا أسف. أتكلم اللغة العربية شوية فقط
(I'm sorry. I only speak a little Arabic.)

Great info Azeem,
Just to note that أسف (asaf) with a أ means regret or sorrow, whereas آسف (Aasef) with an آ means sorry

I thought the difference between أسف and آسف is similar to I'm sorry. and Sorry! in English. That آسف is the Imperative form and just gives it a stronger meaning.

I've heard and used أنا متأسف as well.

The word "ba'd" is more interesting and more difficult than it might seem at first glance. Three points need to be made here:
(1) "Ba'd" occurs in some very useful adverbial phrases, e.g. "ba'd bukra" (the day after tomorrow), "ba'd qaliil" (after a while), "ba'd sa'a" (in an hour's time) and "laysa ba'd" (not yet).
(2) A clearly audible epenthetic vowel ("a") is inserted between "ba'd" and "qaliil" and between "ba'd" and "sa'a", but there is no epenthetic vowel between "ba'd" and "bukra".
(3) When "ba'd" is followed by "a" it sounds like the hamzated verb "bada'a" (he began), which also crops up in this lesson in another guise. The phonetic similarity between the verb and the preposition may constitue a pitfall for the unsuspecting beginner, who will find it hard to distinguish between "bada'a" and "ba'd" + "a" unless he is already familiar with the typical environments in which the words in question occur.

آسف can be a verb or an adjective. If it is pronounced (aasef) then it is an adjective, if it is (aasaf) it is a present tense verb. The following examples will demonstrate آسف as an adjective

أنا آسف – هي آسفة – هم آسفون

If you’re looking at the verb then the easiest thing to do with آسف is to study it from the root. The root is the past tense verb which is أسف (Asefa), and if you wanted to change it to a first person present tense verb you add أ to beginning as you usually do, but because there is already an أ at the beginning it changes to آ to become آسف
e.g.
ضَرَبَ (Past tense) – أضرب (First person present tense)
أَكَلَ (Past tense) – آكل (First person present tense)
أَسَفَ (Past tense) – آسف (First person present tense)

Just remember you can’t say أنا أسف to mean ‘I’m sorry’. It has to be أنا آسف.
You can say أنا أسفت to mean ‘I was sorry’ but ‘I’m sorry’ is أنا آسف

Thanks Moshaya!

great discussion - might be of help to identify the type of verb you are giving the root of - type 1, 2 etc.. - than comprehension might be even better
salaam wa shukran jaziilan achii

I have no idea where to begin this? I'm from the U.S. and am very interested in the arabic language

Hello Isawhalen! You are not alone--we are all from different parts of the world, and what unites us is our interest in this language. There is something for every learner on this website, I think. If you are totally new to this, then I would suggest that you begin by studying this and the earlier Beginner-level lessons (navigate to Lessons and then to Beginner, where you will find about 90 lessons just waiting for you) until you gain enough confidence to go onto the Lower-Intermediate level, which is about where I am at the moment. It should be fun. Welcome, and good luck!

i have just exhusted my one week trial, and it feels good. looking foward to full subscription. where can i get all the info regarding subscription, pls?

This link should tell you all what you need about the subscription schemes: http://www.arabicpod.net/user/membership_comparison

Hi, i would like to ask why sometimes there occur an epenthetic wovel "a" and sometimes doesnt after the word ba'd as described in desmond's message. Who can help me?