Beginner - Buying petrol

Great lesson - both the vocab and descriptions. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates driving. I have successfully avoided it for years!

Nobody seems to have noticed the definite article before the noun ﺮﺻﺎﺺ. In Arabic the term “unleaded” is rendered by a word-group which literally means “free from THE lead” (not “free from lead”).

Several podcasts might be devoted to the use of the article in Modern Standard Arabic. In Arabic the definite article is used before the names of substances (e.g. ﺮﺻﺎﺺ) and abstract nouns denoting emotions (e.g. ﺤﺐ). It is also used before plural nouns denoting a class (cf. the podcast entitled “Transportation”), and in some cases it has to be rendered as a possessive adjective in English (cf. the video entitled “Flight Commentary”).

It's rather FULL TANK here...how do you say FILL IT FULL?

Thanks for another very useful lesson, ya Mohamed and Ehab!
I have two questions today:
Could you also say (أي شئ اخرى؟ ), or would it be impolite to use the word 'thing' instead of 'service' in this context?
My second question refers to the one already asked by khatavkar_rajan, how to say "fill the tank" or "fill it up"?
Thanks for some more enlightenment :)

I learned 2 new things in this dialog. First is the word عادي

I just had my regular weekly Arabic class (here in Helsinki's työväenopisto), and I was trying to say normal today (can't remember the context), but anyway, now I know! Thanks.

The other thing I learned was from this:
أي خدمة أخرى؟

In another Arabic audio lesson (I think it's from 'colloquial Arabic of Egypt', they have somebody saying أي خدمة, but for some reason I always heard it as "aiya kidna" (not kidma), so this transcript has now taught me to listen a bit harder to the difference in Arab pronunciation of the letters miim and nuun.

Thanks again!

Jenkki, I love your profile picture :-)

Na7la yes you can say that, but like you mentioned, it wouldn’t be as polite, the difference is almost like the following sentences in English

“Anything else?” & “Any other service I can help you with?”

This is how you say fill the tank :
ملء الخزان على الآخر – Male2 al7’azaan 3alaa alaa7’ar – Fill the tank until the end
However, tank is hardly used at petrol stations in reality as it would be obvious that we’re talking about the tank in that context.

Desmond, good point about the definite article. We should do a grammatical lesson on it.

Karen, Ehab will be happy to know that there are others like him who’d rather not sit in the driver’s seat :-)

Thanks Mohammed, yeah that was me when I was around 8 years old... ;-) Thanks to my Dad, I lived in Dharahan, Saudi Arabia back then (1977-78). We bought the clothes directly from the souk. So, I can thank my Dad for getting me motivated to learn Arabic (he speaks it fluently).

By the way, Mohammed, I love your English accent. Particularly the way you pronounce your "L". It's interesting how you sound alot like a Jordanian friend of mine who works for the same company as me, but you've obviously got some UK influences in the way you speak, too... ;-) How is it that you and Ehab sound so different when you speak English? Ehab has the same accent as a friend of mine who is originally from Iran. But both of you are perfectly well understood.

Hey, by the way, can I make a suggestion for you guys for a Podcast topic? I'm listening to all of your intermediate podcasts where Ehab is speaking only Arabic (which is great way to do it)... Could you do a podcast where you focus on some of the small words and expressions that Ehab uses when he is explaining stuff? It goes so fast some times that I miss the point of the Podcast because I'm trying to decipher what Ehab just said (I understand only about 50% of it). Tamamm is easy, but some of the other words are harder.

It’s a lovely picture, and it’s extra nice because of the way you have the قطرة (Qu6ra) and عقال (Eqaal) on your head. Even today I have some difficulty putting those garments on my head properly.

Regarding our English, well I have been speaking English along with Arabic most of my life since I have a British mum, and Ehab has learnt English from scratch only 6 years ago, I think he’s done well.

And thanks for your suggestion; it’s a good idea as those vital expressions will probably help listeners understand Intermediate lessons even more. Keep them coming!

Dear Mohamed,

I think Jenkki’s suggestion is excellent, and I’m glad you’ve accepted it. Here are my own suggestions:

The podcast suggested by Jenkki could be divided into three parts. The first part might be devoted to introductory remarks, the second to metalanguage, the third to concluding remarks.

Let’s begin with introductory remarks. In the podcast about the “time bridge” you talk briefly about the sunny weather in London. You say ﻤﻤﺘﺎﺯ, and Ehab uses the adjective ﻤﺸﻤﺲ. I found that brief exchange very useful. Why not start off each of the beginners’ podcasts with a few remarks about the weather in the South of England? If you speak nothing but English you’ll merely waste time and irritate listeners like the person who complained that he had to edit all your podcasts, but if you speak both English and Arabic everyone will learn some useful vocabulary. You can say something like “It’s been raining all night”, “There was heavy rain this morning, but now the rain has dropped to a drizzle”, “It’s very sultry, and I think there’s going to be a thunderstorm”, “It’s very cold and foggy this morning”, “We’ve had a lot of snow lately”, “The roads are covered with ice, and Ehab nearly fell off his bicycle this morning”. Then translate these sentences into Arabic, and put the translations along with the English sentences in the transcript. Since you live in England we probably won’t hear ﻤﺸﻤﺲ very often, but we’ll hear words like ﻤﻄﺮ and ﻀﺒﺎﺐ. Beginners need to hear as much Arabic as possible from the outset, and words and phrases have to repeated over and over again so that they won’t be forgotten.

Now let’s consider metalanguage. Metalanguage, which is known in Arabic as lugha (ﻠﻐﺔ) ma’refa (ﻤﻌﺮﻓﺔ), is the language we use to discuss language itself. Here are some examples that might be included in the podcast:

ﺸﺮﻄ (protasis) This is the “if” clause in an English conditional sentence.

ﺠﻮﺍﺐ (apodosis) This is the consequence clause of a conditional sentence. In one of the podcasts the Arabic term was mistranslated as “answer”, which doesn’t make sense in a grammatical context.

ﻠﻬﺠﺔ (dialect) Since this word can also mean “accent”, native speakers of Arabic often say “accent” when they mean “dialect” (cf. the first Arabicpod YouTube video). “Accent” merely refers to pronunciation. It is a kind of pronunciation which shows which region a person comes from. You can speak standard English with a Scottish accent or standard Arabic with a Syrian accent. “Dialect”, by contrast, refers not only to pronunciation, but also to grammar and word choice, so a person who speaks an Egyptian dialect will not just pronounce a “j” like a hard “g”; he/she will also use words, expressions and grammatical constructions that would not be employed by Jordanian or Palestinian speakers.

Finally, something must be said about concluding remarks. At the end of intermediate or advanced level podcasts Ehab often invites listeners to ask questions, and he occasionally mentions the forum or the Arabicpod website. This means that the relevant words and expressions need to be discussed and included in the transcript of the planned podcast:

ﺃﺴﺌﻠﺔ (the plural of the word for “question”)
ﻤﻨﺘﺪﻯ (forum)
ﻤﻮﻗﻊ (website)

I could list dozens of other words and phrases. Perhaps some other listeners would like to suggest additional vocabulary items.

Mohammed, can you remind me which is قطرة and which is عقال ?

BTW. I do remember talking about "Thobe" and "Gutra" - that was something my Dad taught me, back then but I never learned how to spell it in Arabic. My Dad grew up in Egypt, so maybe that's why he says "Gutra" instead of "Qutra"...

Funny the things you remember from childhood... I also remember the words "بجامة و شبشب" (pajamas and shib-shibs)... but perhaps there is also a فصحة version of those words, too?

Dear Jenkki,

I find your comments very interesting. The noun ﻋﻗﺎﻞ denotes the rope circlet that holds the keffiyeh in place. As for ﺸﺒﺸﺐ, it’s a standard Arabic word for “slipper”. I mentioned it a few months ago in a comment on Arabic nouns which have been formed by reduplication.

Thanks Desmond! so ﻋﻗﺎﻞ is the black circlet (what's the word for it in English, I wonder??)... and then قطرة is the headscarf... or okay, I didn't know that word keffiyeh (how do you spell that in Arabic): perhaps كفية

BTW. we have derailed this thread from the topic of buying petrol ;-) I can add one comment relevant to this... I agree with Mohammed that it's nice that in the Arab countries they serve you so well. Here in Finland, you go to the store, and you are lucky to get anybody to help you out... Not a very good business practice IMO. I've lived here 15 years, so I guess I've gotten used to it, but I guess it's one of the things I miss about the good ol' USA... where they bag your groceries and you never lack a salesperson asking you if they can help (although, they no longer offer full service gas station anyway that I have seen in many many years)...

I can answer those questions, too, Jenkki. “Keffiyeh” is the English equivalent of ﻜﻮﻓﻴﺔ, which can be transliterated as “kuufiyya” or “kufiyyah”. The transliteration of the “ta marbuta” is rather problematic. Some Arabists simply write “a”, while others argue that it is more correct to write “ah”.

There are several Arabic words for the traditional headscarves worn by men, and there is even a YouTube video where a young man shows how the scarf ought to be folded before it is draped over the head. It must be very hard to keep the scarf on in stormy weather.

The English word for ﻋﻗﺎﻞ is “agal”, but this is a very rare word. There are very few native speakers of English who know this kind of technical term (ﻤﺼﻁﻟﺢ).

I know more about bicycles than cars. I have no driving licence and prefer cycling to driving.

Since you live in Finland you probably have a good command of Finnish. I’ve never tried to learn Finnish and I never hear anyone speaking Finnish since I live in Germany.

Yeah, I don't wanna brag, but I do speak Finnish (and German). Finnish is perhaps almost as hard a language to learn for English speakers as Arabic because it is a totally unique language family (Finno-Ugric)... only related to Hungarian and some next-to extinct languages of tribes that used to roam Sibera (like Samoyyid, Lavonian, etc...). To give you an example of how different Finnish from Indo-European languages, the word for Finland in Finnish is "Suomi", Sweden is "Ruotsi", and Russia is "Venäjä".

Anyway thanks for your translations! I love this site... I am learning a lot!

It's a pity I've no time to learn Finnish. It sounds tempting.

i love this so much ty

The word 'ow' was used instead of 'am' for unleaded OR normal. I thought when a question is being asked 'am' is used instead of 'ow'?

How would I say in colloquial gulf to fill the tank (meaning fill the tank completely)?

Thanks