What's the right way to say Qatar?

Qatar is a word you will hear pronounced all kinds of different ways. It's been in the news a lot lately since it was announced December 2nd that it will host the 2022 Soccer World Cup. There's really no way to say it correctly with an accent other than the Arabic one since it has 3 letters that aren't in English, but you can get close.

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Cursing in Arabic

This post is about all the bad words that you're unlikely to learn in a language class. You have to do the research on your own or have some Arab friends who will teach you. As far as I'm concerned words like this should be taught. You don't have to use them, but it's good to know them so that you at least have an idea of what people are saying either to you or just around you. This is a touchy subject when talking about the Arabic language specifically. I've noticed that many Arabs want everyone to think that Arabic is a modest and pure language. By many it is viewed as the language of God after all. So a lot of people take offense when words like this are taught. It's not like in English where no one really cares if swearing is taught to foreigners. I don't think Americans view it as blemishing our reputation if people know that there is profanity in English, but lots of Arabs take it personally. The truth is that every language on Earth has profanity. So, view this post as a purely academic endeavor.

First are some phrases you can say when someone wrongs you. For example, you're carrying something and someone bumps into you causing you to drop and break it. You can say these in response. They aren't considered vulgar and are very mild but still said when angry:

• يقطع عمرك (yaqta' 'omrak) - May God kill you. (يقطع means "cut", and عمرك is "your life")

• يخرب بيتك (yikhrib beytak) - May God destroy your house. (God is implied in this and the previous phrase)
• الله لا يعطيك العافية (allah la ia'teek al'aafia) - May God not give you health. (I was in a restaurant in Amman and one waiter said this to another when his friend spilled a drink. He was joking, but it can be said in anger too. This is also said commonly without the negation. الله يعطيك العافية - God give you health.
• العمى (al'ama) - Literally 'blindness'. It's used like 'damn'.
  

Next are the vulgar words that shouldn't be said around anyone:

• كس (kis) - vagina
• شرموطة (sharmoota) - whore (plural is شراميط shraameet)
  
• زب (zib) - dick/cock (plural is زباب zbab)
  
• بز (biz) - tit (pural is بزاز bzaz)
• طيز (teez) - ass
• عير ('ayr) - dick/cock (There's a funny video of a news anchor mistakenly saying صباح العير instead of صباح الخير , basically 'dick morning' instead of 'good morning'. Just type in صباح العير in You Tube.)
  
• خرى (khara) - shit

How these are used in phrases:

• كس اختك (kis ikhtak) - you're sister's vagina (like English 'fuck')
• يا ابن الشرموطة (ya ibn asharmoota) - you son of a whore
• مص زبي (mus zibbi) - suck my dick
• الحس طيزي (ilhas teezi) - lick my ass
• عيري فيك ('ayri feek) - my dick is in you
  
• كل خرى (kul khara) - eat shit

This list doesn't not include all Arabic curse words. There are a lot more. This is just intended to give exposure to what's out there. There are some Disney videos here that are dubbed over with cursing that are actually pretty funny. If anyone can tell me what dialect that is I would be grateful. It sounds like a mix between Levantine and Gulf dialect because they use بدي for "I want" but the accent sounds like Gulf and they say ك as 'ch'.

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Hi in Arabic

As in any language, in Arabic there are many different ways to greet someone. A lot more time is spent on greetings in Arabic than is spent in English. I knew some Arabs just learning English and they were amazed at how quickly we greet each other and then move on. They thought it was kind of rude and thoughtless to give such a small amount of time to greetings. To me the length of Arabic greetings seems strange, but I accept the fact that we both have different cultures and place importance on different things.

1. السلام عليكم (assalaamu 'aleykum)
This literally means "peace be upon you". It is probably the most formal greeting in Arabic. The response is و عليكم السلام (wa 'aleykum assalaam). You hear this a lot more often during Ramadan because everyone feels more religious during that month. Also, after saying السلام عليكم you can add و رحمة الله و بركاته (wa rahmat allahi wa barakaatu). This means "and the mercy of God and his blessings", saying may those be upon you as well. This last part was very hard for me to say when I was starting Arabic.

2. اهلاً و سهلاً (ahlan wa sahlan)
This is translated as "hello and welcome". It's less formal than "peace be upon you" and used in less formal situations. You can respond to this greeting with اهلَين (ahlain) which means "two ahlans". However, that response is really only used in the Levantine region (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine).

3. مرحباً (marhaban)
This is the closest thing to "hi" that they have in Arabic. With this you can reply with مرحبتين (marhabtain) "two marhabans". People will understand everywhere, but it's only used commonly in the Levant.

4. صباح الخير (sabaah alkhair)
We translate this as "good morning". If you want to take it literally then it means "morning of the good". The response is صباح النور (sabah annour) which means "morning of the light". It doesn't make a lot of sense if you take it literally like that, so it's always just translated as "good morning".

5. مساء الخير (masaa alkhair)
Means "good evening". Like with "good morning", the response is مساء النور (masaa annour), "evening of the light".

6. تحية لك (tahia leka)
This actually means "greetings to you". It's not very common to greet someone with this just as it wouldn't be common to say "greetings to you" in English.

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Product Review: Arabic Genie

One of the biggest things that makes Arabic seem so daunting is its alphabet. It basically just looks like a bunch of squiggles and dots before you learn it, as you can see in this screen cap from the South Park episode Imaginationland. Learning the alphabet is an essential first step when learning Arabic. Without knowing it you can't start to learn anything else about the language. One of the most difficult aspects of the Arabic alphabet is the fact that simply adding a dot to a letter, in many cases, makes it a totally different letter. You have ب ,ي ,ن ,ت ,ث which are all the same except for the number of dots they have and whether those dots are above or below. Many people confuse these similar letters for a long time when learning Arabic. You really need a way to distinguish the Arabic letters from each other and remember what sounds they make. That is why the Arabic Genie program is so nice. It offers memory aids for each letter and dozens of exercises that cement the sound and shape of each letter in your mind. It teaches you how to spell English words with the Arabic letters, a method which connects the new Arabic letters to something that you are familiar with and have been using all your life.Once you go through the program and learn the sounds and shapes of each letter, the book introduces you to Arabic calligraphy. I find certain Arabic calligraphy very difficult to read. I remember when I was first learning Arabic I asked my teacher what the logo on the Al Jazeera channel said. My teacher laughed at me and told me that it said "Al Jazeera". It took me months to figure out where each of the letters were in the logo, which dots went with which letter, and which markings were just for decoration. I had to figure it out on my own, but Arabic Genie points out where each letter is in several calligraphies, a tactic which you will be able to apply to all Arabic calligraphy you come into contact with in the future.

Arabic Genie turned out to be a much better program than I expected. It takes things that make total sense to Arabs, but not so much sense to English speakers, and explains them in a way that is perfectly logical and simple. If I ever hit my head and forget Arabic I know where to turn to start relearning it. To buy a copy of the Arabic Genie, click here.

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Introductory Arabic: The Idafa الإضافة

The idafa الإضافة is a basic construct essential to understanding Arabic. Without understanding it one can never get beyond a beginner's level. The word idafa literally means "the addition". In newspapers you will see اضاف المصدر (adafa almusdar) "the source added" used very often. Arabic is unlike languages like English and Spanish in that there isn't really a word for "of" in the possessive sense. In Spanish you would say "the book of the teacher" to mean "the teacher's book", but in Arabic you would say "book the teacher" to mean the same thing; كتاب الأستاذ (kitaab alustaadh).

When first starting to learn Arabic it seemed so foreign and strange that they don't have the simple word "of". I found myself struggling to form basic sentences because I didn't really understand the idafa. I would throw in the word مِن thinking that it meant "of" instead of "from" and get blank stares from my teachers. Here are some more examples to help drive home the idea of the idafa:

• صواريخ بعيدة المدى (Sawareekh ba'eedat almada) - Long range missiles, literally "missles long of the range"
• سرطان الجلد (Sarataan aljild) - Skin cancer, literally "cancer of the skin"
• تكنولوجيا المعلومات (Technologia alma'loomaat) - Information technology, literally "technology of the information"

When the owner of the object is already a definite noun, such as a proper name, you don't add the alif and lam. For example, if you're talking about Nadir's wallet, you're not going to say "wallet alNadir". You would just say "wallet Nadir". محفظة نادر is correct, NOT محفظة النادر . Here are some more examples:

• ولاية فلوريدا (wilaayat florida) - The state of Florida
• مراسل بي بي سي (muraasil BBC) - BBC correspondent (correspondent of BBC)
  

Something else you may have noticed about idafas is that when the first word in the idafa (the thing that is owned) ends in altaa almarbouta ة it makes a "t" sound. This can be see in the example of "the state of Florida". Even though, by itself, the word ولاية (wilaaya) doesn't have a "t" sound at the end, if it's the first word in an idafa then it does have a "t" sound. If you didn't make the "t" sound at the end of it and just said "wilaaya Florida" it would mean "a state is Florida". My teachers used to always stop me when I wouldn't make the "t" sound at the end in situations like that and I never understood what the big deal was. Some time later I realized that not pronouncing the "t" actually gives the phrase a different meaning.

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Learn the Arabic Numbers through Song

In Arabic the word nasheed نشيد means "hymn", but they use the word for many things that in English we would just call songs, so when you see نشيد it doesn't always mean "hymn" in the English sense. Basically all children songs are called نشيد الاطفال. This song for teaching the Arabic numbers was posted on YouTube as نشيد الأرقام literally, The Number's Hymn. It's mainly for kids, but it's also useful for adults learning Arabic.