Lower Intermediate - You're So Tanned

Shukran for another interesting lesson.
How do we say: You have a beautiful complexion to a male and female. Is "bashraa" used for complexion too?
Is it right to say:
YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL COMPLEXION.
andak bashraa hellow/jameel (to a male)
andik bashraa helwaa/jameela (to a female)

Hi quest,

I would just say Bashratuka Jameel (male), or bashratuki Jameelah (female). Also, I would add "mashallah" at the beginning or end, because it is kind of expected when complimenting like that in the Arabic culture

Dear Ehab,

I think you ought to have a look at the Arabic website of the BBC. There's a video about overweight people in Beirut. The sound quality is excellent, and the language isn't particularly difficult. There are a lot of words that have already been discussed in your podcasts (e.g. fizzy drinks). I hope you'll be able to make a recording before the video disappears.

Off topic: I have a question about how I'd say Long Live (not in the Arabic keyboard, but the English)?

Dear Cat Lover,

ﻴﻌﻴﺶ is the expression you’re looking for. It might be transcribed as “ya'iish”. I’m afraid I don’t understand the last part of your question. There’s no subject and no verb, and I’ve no idea what you mean by “the English”.

Thank you, Arabic lover for answering my question.

This was a neat dialogue and I liked seeing the innovation for tanning, I think many languages do that like Japanese where they simply at a "to do" very with a noun to create a new verb.

I have a few questions though!

1.) I've seen the word جعل used in others ways like to mean to force someone to do something... or he made me do something. Does that sound right or is there a better word?
المعلم يجعلني ان اكمل واجبتي.
"The teacher made me finish my homework."

2.) You use the word شقراء to indicate feminine blonde hair. I have heard it used on it's own to simply mean a "blond woman", what would be the plural then? Such as we have in English "the blondes"?

3.) I think it would be useful for listeners for you guys to go over those other "weird" adjectives such as آصلع in this lesson, in which they change to unique forms for masc./fem. as well as plural. I believe adjs, like blind, bald, mute, deaf, hunch-backed, etc... all have unique and confusing forms.

Great lesson, and I look forward to more!
Tomes

You’ve raised a lot of interesting points, Tomes. I agree with what you said about adjectives. I think we need a whole series of podcasts about words like ﺃﺒﻜﻢ (dumb), ﺃﻄﺮﺶ (deaf) and ﺃﻋﻤﻰ (blind). Isn’t it odd that these words all begin with the same letter?
It’s also rather odd that they all have irregular feminine and plural forms. Example:

ﺃﻄﺮﺶ (masculine)
ﻄﺮﺸﺎﺀ (feminine)
ﻄﺮﺶ (plural)

These words belong to the core vocabulary of the language, and they are probably some of the oldest words, too. Have you noticed that the oldest words in a language are often the most irregular? Some of the oldest English words have irregular Germanic plurals: mouse > mice, louse > lice, man > men, child > children.

Yes the morphology of those adjectives are quite interesting. I wonder if it has something to do with the words being loan words from another language. You were right though even in English, well especially in English we have some very unusual patterns for plurals, I dare say as much as Arabic which has I think about a dozen known plural forms for nouns/adjs?

I look forward for more input from the Arabicpod staff.

tomes

I don't think the Arabic adjectives under discussion are loan words. Look at the so-called "biliteral primitives" - terms like "ukht" and "'akh". They're all irregular. I would affirm that irregularity is one of the essential characteristics of Arabic morphology, but I hasten to add that most irregular word forms can be assigned to several clearly recognizable groups.

The English words I cited aren't loan words either, for English was originally a Germanic dialect, and it would probably have evolved in more or less the same way as Dutch and German if the Normans hadn't conquered England in the eleventh century.

The parallels between the oldest English words and their modern German equivalents are quite striking: Laus > Läuse (lice), Maus > Mäuse (mice), Kind > Kinder (children), Mann > Männer (men).

Wow, you're all doing a really good job answering each other's questions. Thank you for filling in for me while I've been away from email.

TOMEST05 let me just address a couple of your questions that haven't been answered:

1) While you can use حعل to make to "induce someone to do something" (as in جعل يفعل) it's better to use أجبر على if you want the meaning of "to force."

2) It's a little tricky using the forms of شقراء to refer to the blondes, because while the singular forms are gendered, the plural isn't. So it's probably better just to say either الرجال الشقر (the blond men) or النساء الشقر (the blond women). Clearer anyway.

3) Good suggestion from you (seconded by DESMOND) about doing one or more lessons on blind, bald, mute, etc. and other similar adjectives. We'll put it on the list.

Thank you!

Sierra/Staff,

Great thanks, so this would sound most appropriate then:
آجبرت معلمتي علي ان اكمل واحبي فبل الدرس اليوم

"My teacher (female) made me complete my home work before class today."

That just sits better to an Arabic ear?

Thanks again for the answers, keep the lessons coming!

Tomes

Very close, TOMEST05, and thank you for submitting an actual sentence! You get a gold star ;-) You want to use على before WHAT you're teacher forced you to do and you can attach the object directly to the verb. So it's:

أحبرتني معلمتي على أن أكمل واجبي قبل الدرس اليوم
OR
أحبرتني معلمتي على إكمال واجبي قبل الدرس اليوم

In the second example I use the مصدر so I don't need to use the connecter أن

And yes, that sounds more precise.

@Desmond

I guess I meant in the Latin letters.

Dear Catlover,

I'd have understood you immediately if you'd asked for a transcription in Roman letters. "Keyboard" and "letters" have entirely different meanings.

@Desmond

I guess it is keyboard. I'm still getting used to terminology because some words have numbers in them (when I first saw that, that confused me a lot). Yeah, I'm still very much a beginner.

Hi Sierra, I'd like you to know that I enjoy (and benefit) your lessons a lot. Your speech is very clear, in both arabic and english, so I don't miss a slyable. I also like the format of the lessons. So, I wish you and Ilyas do more lessons (preferably in MSA).
I also have a question specific to this lesson. I think I heard the pronounciation of limazha-Why as "limala". Is this some kind of exception or did I get it wrong? Thank you again for the great job!

Selçuk Örnek