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ana u7eb hadha dars.

شكرا

Ehab's suggestion that, should one put themselves in the position of the woman in the dialog, one would find one's self "gob smacked." I think I would be just simply livid and know of something that would likely be smacked in that circumstance! I had to wince my way through the story, but I picked up some grammar / vocab from the dialog. Not a nice one guys from my perspective - though I seem to be in the minority here. : (

American saying, can any tanslate it to arabic?

Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free!

غباءجنساني؟

Should this character have said to the former daughter of a farmer or rancher...like me...he would be gumming his fish for several years!
يكفي أن!

@jayrag,

لماذا تشتري البقرة في حين تستطيع الحصول على الحليب مجانا!؟
Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free!?

I enjoyed this topic very much and there is a perfectly same saying in Japanese too. Pretty funny,right?
BTW,I've just started to learn Arabic like a baby.By now,I remembered 8 dialogs by heart but can't read or write any of this.
Ehab and Mohammed says in the podcast that they will teach Arabic like we've learned our native language.And I'm interested in it very very much.(English is my second language)
When I learned English,I was taught reading and grammer first.This time I would like a different approach.
So,my point is:when I should start working on Arabic characters,and in what way?
This might sound a kind of foolish question,but since I teach English at daycare,(exactly rather playing using English than teaching English)this is a very big issue for me.
Arabic is totally new language for me,but I really enjoy learning it and want to learn more.
I would be appreciate if someone gives me some advise.

@Kurumi, welcome to the site. I'm glad you took the plunge to learn Arabic! We actually have a lot of Arabic learners from Japan based on our statistics.

With regards to learning Arabic characters (I presume you mean writing) my advice would be to look at the transcripts with a pen while listening to the podcasts, and attempt to write the Arabic down of the words you hear from the podcasts using the transcripts as a reference.

At the beginning you will need to look at the transcripts a lot while doing this, but over time you will have gotten used to the Arabic characters and will not use the transcripts as much as you get close to perfecting the writing.

I hope if anyone else is reading this that they could also share their own techniques which may be useful for all of us to know.

Thanks for your quick reply and helpul answer Moshaya,yes,it seems exactly small children do when they start reading and writing.Different from some other languages,Arabic characters doesn't use alphabets,which is very challenging and exciting for me.I would happy to try your way.
Well,can I ask you one more question? It's about spoken Arabic and classical Arabic.As for the dofference,is it like all other languages have?I mean,In Japanese,we don't speak like news casters in our daily conversations.And there are many dialects too. And if we write as if we talk,it looks too imformaland weird.maybe so is English? My native Arabic speaker friend told me it is like learning 2 different languages! :(
If so,it seems scarly!
I would like to hear your opinion.

@Kurumi, Arabic does have an alphabet but because the characters are joined together when written, you will have to learn the shape of each character when

1. it is not joined e.g. ب
2. it is joined at the beginning (to the right of the character since we write from right to left) e.g. ـب
3. it is joined at the end e.g. بـ
4. it is joined at both ends e.g. ـبـ

With regards to classical Arabic and colloquial, classical Arabic is generally used in the media and education, while colloquial Arabic is the Arabic that is used generally in day to day conversations in the street. The good news is that they are not like completely different languages, but in colloquial some of the classical words are pronounced differently or alternative new "non-classical" words are used.

My advice is to not worry too much about this and just start listening to our podcasts, because we try to teach the Arabic that is used throughout the Arab world whether it's classical or colloquial, and we often highlight the differences between the two so eventually you will become familiar with both and realise it's quite easy and the difference is not that vast.

@Moshaya,thank you again for your insightful advice.It has cleared alot of things.Yes,I will listen to your podcasts without worrying too much.Actually listening to them is fun!

As for Alphabet,I meant to say that Arabic characters are completely different from those of English .(I need to keep on improve my English too...T^T)They are totally unfamiliar, mysterious letters.For me,they are still just lines and dots.I can't wait to experience the process of acquisition,I mean,how they start to change into words.

I am quite sure I can do that with your help and thankful I have met Arabicpod.Let me say thanks again for all the great work you've done for us all.