Beginner - Do you like dates?

أحب أيضاً تمر كثراً، لكن ماذا تقول فيغس بالعربي؟ أنا أحب فيغس أكثر من تمر.

If you didn't understand the above, I was trying to say that I also love dates, but that I love figs even more. How do you say "figs" in Arabic? I presume that they also grow figs in Arab countries.

@ jenkki

If you want to talk about figs in general you say ﺘﻴﻦ (cf. the 95th sura of the Qur’an), but if you want to talk about an individual fig you say ﺘﻴﻨﺔ. The collective noun is known as an “ism al-jins”, while the unit noun is called an “ism al-wahda”.

@ Ehab and Mohamed

Do you know the story about the haughty date palm that refused to bear fruit?

eid mubarak to all at arabic pod....كل عام وانت بخير ... وان شاء الله ينعاد عليك بالخير والسعادة والنجا............

Thanks for the nice lesson. I have one doubt. Is تمرة (tamrah) singlular and تمر (tamr) plural?

@ vinod

The distinction between "tamr" and "tamra" is like the distinction between "tiin" amd "tiina" (see the comment I posted at 1:58 am GMT). Collective nouns like "tamr" and "tiin" are singular in form but plural in meaning, while unit nouns like "tamra" and "tiina" are singular in form as well as in meaning.

"Tamr" can be rendered in English as a singular or a plural noun ("figs" or "the common fig"). We can say "He likes figs" (plural) or "The common fig is a large, deciduous shrub" (singular). In both cases the Arabic equivalent is "tamr".

There are, however, cases where a collective Arabic noun is almost always rendered as a singular in English. "Dajaj" is a good example. It means "chicken" as a type of food. If we want to say "He likes chicken" or "He always eats chicken", "dajaj" (not "dajaja") will be the correct Arabic translation. "Chickens" will only be a feasible translation equivalent if we are talking about chickens as birds as opposed to chickens as a source of nourishment.

If you look up words like "fish" or "fig" in an Arabic encyclopedia you'll notice that the headwords are always collective nouns. There are hundreds of lexical items like "tiin" in Arabic. Most of them denote plants or animals.

@jenkki very good attempt. Although I understood what you meant, the following way of saying the sentence would sound better

أنا أيضاً أحب التمر كثيرا، لكن كيف تقول "فيقس" بالعربي؟ أنا أحب الفيقس أكثر من التمر

@Desmond For some reason sometimes when you write Arabic the words are truncated, for example the word تين is missing the letter ن in your above comment. I would highly recommend writing Arabic in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste on here, or even use our keypad below. Oh, as always thanks for sharing your knowledge with the AP community! You’re an asset to the community.

@ berry وأنتم بألف خير، شكراً

Eid mubarak everyone! The dates are fitting in nicely with the celebrations :) Anyhow, I am determined to find all the various date types next saturday on the big Munich grocery market (Viktualienmarkt) where everything can be found (and as was mentioned in the podcast, price is not an issue there...). I am just wondering about one thing: here in Germany, in the supermarkets usually we get the packaged, dried dates, they are normally not as tasty, dark-brownish in colour, shrunk in size of course and not so soft. What would they be called? bala7 as well?
Happy greetings to you Ehab and Mohamed, and all the AP community! Hugs!
Sabine min Munich

Dear Mohamed,

I wrote my comment as a Word document and then copied it into the comment box. I can see all the letters on my screen now, and I can't understand why certain letters are invisible on your screen. This is the second time that this has happened.

A few months ago (I think it was at Easter), na7la and I saw some odd things that you and Ehab couldn't see in London. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that we're in different parts of the world.

I'd be most grateful if some other listeners could add a brief comment to let me know whether they can see all the Arabic letters in the text I posted early this morning.

By the way, a few days ago the Arabicpod website completely disappeared. It was inaccessible for about half an hour, then everything suddenly returned to normal. The server for Germany doesn't always function very well.

Best wishes,
Desmond

@Desmond – Thanks for the explanation.

@na7la - I could gather the following information.

There are hundreds of cultivars (varieties) of dates, each with a specific name. But one specific feature of dates (in general,) compared to other fruits is that they have THREE DISCTINCT commercial maturation stages. (Do not confuse the names of cultivars with the names of the stages.)

(Dates green in colour are not palatable.) خلال or بلح or بسر is the full-size, unripe but palatable, crunchy, yellow/red dates (First stage). رطب is the ripe soft dates with skin turning brown, sold as fresh fruit (Second stage). Since it can not be stored for a long time, it will be available only locally. تمر is the ripe, sun-dried dates (Final stage), which can be preserved for a long time and exported to other countries.

Hope this explanation helps.

Sorry for the typo in my previous comment – The correct spelling is - THREE DISTINCT

@na7la - One more point about the stages of dates. Availability of بلح and رطب is seasonal. But تمر is available throughout the year.

hi desmond, in reply to your request, letters are often missing when you post in arabic.

Thanks for the interesting information, Berry. It's odd that I can see all the missing Arabic letters on my screen. Elias was right when, in a recent podcast, he said that Arabic is a language of many mysteries!

Best wishes
Desmond

This lesson is a nice initial step to later understanding the "Date Palm" intermediate lesson - which is one of the more difficult but interesting intermediate lessons available. Would love to see more beginner and intermediate lessons which provide a bridge to those harder intermediate lessons (where there is just a summary of the meanings of phrases rather than a more detailed breakdown of the words). Nice lesson - love to hear from the guests.

@ Desmond, I can read the arabic word"Teen" clearly and also see the alphabet "noon" in it in your comments.

Ustad Saleh and Mohammed. Jazakum Allah Khairan wa Shukran for the podcast and lessons. Also EID MUBARAK To all!

Thank you for this information, quest. We all know that Modern Standard Arabic can be written without vowels, but I'm probably the first person who has demonstrated that the language can also be written without consonants.

Sometimes my consonants evaporate into cyberspace and cannot be perceived by Berry or Mohamed, but you and I know they are there because we can see them on our screens.

Best wishes
Desmond

@Desmond, تين is missing the ن .

I want to know how tell someone to meet me somewhere. Can you guys help me?

@Yajahmar, 'Qaabelny' is the key word here which means 'meet me' - قابلني e.g.

قابلني هناك - Qaabelny hunaak - Meet me over there
قابلني في ... - Qaabelny fee ... - Meet me in ....