"a generous new husband"
Translation:زَوج جَديد كَريم
19 Comments
390
husband is زوج،
new is جديد،
generous is كريم، and it also means decent, kind, good, gentle etc.
as you can see, the described word, husband, comes first, and then the adjectives.
- 358
Yes. English derives many words from French and Latin and other languages, but Arabic doesn't have that: many Arabic names and technical terminology are just normal everyday words. Oh, and "karim" also means "dignified"; the word for "dignity" is karaama(-tun) كرامة.
- 936
Yes, like Karim Benzema for example. Al-Karim (the Generous) is also one of God's names in the Islamic tradition
- 358
زوج جديد كريم = Generous new husband زوج كريم جديد = New generous husband
The former says that there is a new husband, and that husband is generous, whereas the latter says that there is a generous husband, and that husband is new. The latter kind of implies there are already other "generous husbands" in our lives, and this one is new, and the former implies that there are already other "older husbands" in our lives, and the new one happens to be generous. In Arabic, the order of adjectives is the opposite of that in English, as a general rule, because the adjectives that are closer to the noun in English also need to stay closer to the noun in Arabic, and since the noun comes before the adjectives in Arabic, that means the adjectives that come last in English come first in Arabic.
I think you just translate the reverse order of the English phrase: first "new" then "generous".
- 358
I think it depends on whether the adjectives "intersect" or not. Like how in Spanish, if you say "un amigo viejo" ("an old friend"), the person you're describing happens to be both a friend and an old person, but the oldness doesn't describe the friendship itself, he could be a new friend. But if you say "un viejo amigo," you mean a friend whose friendship has lasted for a long time. Likewise, if you think the newness and generousness of the husband are somehow related, that the old husband wasn't generous, or that the generousness of the new husband is what makes him special, you wouldn't use the و, but if he simply happens to be both generous and new, but the two pieces of information aren't connected, and you could drop either without the meaning of the sentence changing, you would. Hope this helps! ;)
If you mean adding "and"/"وَ" between "generous" and "new", then yes, you can do it and it'll work in Arabic just like it would work in English.
I think they definitely need to add a lesson on sentence structure before diving into the deep end here. Here's a basic lesson on it for the meanwhile: https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/arabic-sentence-structure-nominal-and-verbal-sentences/
I dont know if this will help anyone, but posting in case it will. Otherwise "tsuj1g1r1" left a very helpful explanation.
I agree. How is one supposed to know the word for new when it has not yet been introduced? Jumping to vocabulary words with no introduction is frustrating and demoralizing.
- 358
When a word is presented in amber, that means it is a new word. Hovering over any word at any time with your mouse, or tapping it with your finger if you're on your phone, shows you a pop-up with its meanings. The exception is when you're testing out of a skill, in which case the hover-on feature is disabled, but you ideally shouldn't test out of a skill unless you know its content relatively well.
Thank you. That is helpful, but it would be more helpful if that was explained in the app. This is in beta testing so I'm hoping that someone in development is reading these comments. It was commented elsewhere that the font is way too small and it seems that has been addressed; although it could still be much bigger.
