Here is a poem written and recited in bedouin dialect by Kuwaiti poet Hamid Zaid. and translated to standard Arabic by my friend Azhaar. إي بالله أخطوا والخطا اللي جابهم عين الصواب نعم والله أخطؤوا، والخطأ الذي أحضرهم هو الصواب بعينه مبطي وأنا أشوف الطمع يكشف رداهم وأستره متمهّل وأنا أرى الطمع يكشف سوءهم وأستر [...]
I meant to post this last week, but the daily rain shower means that we’ve been having problems with both electricity and internet. Last Friday we lost power for about 24 hours because the transformer was shorted out. I’m not complaining too much though. While everywhere else in the Middle East is baking in the [...]
Yemen seems to be in the news on a daily basis these days. If it’s not the Huthis in the North, it’s the separatists in the South. If it’s it not Al Qaeda in Marib, it’s some tribesmen kidnapping tourists. On top of all that, a severe water shortage and a whole nation addicted to [...]
Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic is the language of the Quran, Hadith, and classical literature. It shares the same grammar with its direct descendant Modern Standard Arabic, but differs from it in style and word choices. Most non-Muslim Arabic students concentrate on Media Arabic, modern literature, or dialects after they reach an advanced level, while [...]
I was asked the following questions: IMHO, there are more than enough websites out there that explain the 10 verb forms and the most common broken plurals. I believe it would be more helpful if you wrote about topics for intermediate learners that are usually not well explained in traditional textbooks such as resolving the [...]
My first exposure to Bedouin dialect was when I stayed with a Bedouin family in the Empty Quarter near the Yemeni-Saudi-Omani border. At the time I had lived in Sana’a for about ten months, but my MSA was still shaky and I had no exposure to other dialects besides Sana’ani and its variants spoken in [...]
1: Arabic script is hard to learn. Truth: It is the easiest part of learning Arabic. If you are willing to spend one hour per day, you can learn the whole alphabet in a week. ِArabic is a phonetic language which means that you write what you hear and pronounce what you see. There are [...]
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