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- "بوب مُتَرجِم."
44 Comments
If anyone has studied Russian, Arabic does a similar thing when equating nouns: "Bob - translator" rather than English "Bob is a translator" or Spanish, etc. "Bob is translator"
I didn't notice that before but I see what you mean now. Thanks for this! :-)
If the translator is female how would we call her? What are the gender forms when referring to a noun?
I wrote in english "bob is translator" what gives me : You missed a word. Bob is a translator. so wrong answer. Now i'm dutch speaking Belgian and for us (in dutch) there is a difference between with or without a "a" or even "an". Like "Bob is translator" would mean Bob's profession is translating stuff - while "Bob is a(n) translator" means that Bob is one of the many translators out there. Does this difference also exist in Arabic and if so .. how ?
No, it doesn't exist. You could specify that Bob is a translator (one of many) by saying بوب مترجم من المترجمين or بوب واحد من المترجمين but that's putting a lot more stress on it.
As a dutch guy, I had the same question. I answered wrong, but this difference might not be in Arabic. If anyone knows for sure, Im waiting for the answer too :)
Does مُتَرجِم decline (change) depending if you're talking about a female translator vs male translator? For example, I was looking at the table in https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%AC%D9%85 and it doesn't seem to change. I'm not sure though.
Yes. It changes based on gender and number (and sometimes intensity and quality for some functional nouns) so there is for one female, one male, two females, two males, three+ females, and three+ males (or a mixed gender group).
584
Why is the second vowel in "translator" pronounced "mu-tour-jim" like in the word "tour" rather than "mu-tar-jim" like in the word "tar?
It sounds a little like "tar" to me. Perhaps you're just hearing it wrong. The pronunciation seems VERY close to me, and ir may be a blending of the "tar" and "tour" sounds.
- 584
Thanks. I'm hearing more of a "tar" sound now than before. The "a" sound, though, is just very different from what I was expecting it to be in this word.
- 801
But why is the letter "j" pronounced so soft, shouldn't it be much more sharper? It should be like letter "g" in the word "stranGe" even sharper?
yes, in MSA the standard ج is a hard one like in 'George'/'strange'.
The course seems overall to have a soft ج like in 'bonjour', and that is not MSA, but more dialectical (Levantine).
Infact there is a whole other borrowed (nonstandard) Arabic letter for writing a Levantine ج but that is a different story...
The letter ج is indeed pronounced like the G in "stranGe". The problem with this audio is that the ت is being pronounced like a ط which is wrong.
- 801
Will in this example, the letter "ج" reminds me more to the "J" in Turkish, or to the French "J" in BonJour." But I may be wrong, maybe it should go that way. It's, in the Qur'an that letter is pronounced the other way, and as Arabic and the Qur'an use the same language I thought they should be pronounced the same way, but looks like I am wrong. May someone give me something useful on this article?
Salih you are right, it should be a hard J as in 'Jim', where the breath must stop and not just constrict.
Both Qur'an and standard Arabic are pronounced the same, ج in arabic is like c in Turkish not j
- 801
Looks like it depends from region to region. There is a long article on Wikipedia about that letter: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AC Anyway I will stick to the pronouncation as the Arabs pronounce it from the Qur'an which exists more than 1400 years (eg. Turkish letter "C"), so if I ever were about to speak Arabic, Arabians would understand me. Probably Arabs in the meanwhile were about to europeanize their language so that letter declined to the French letter "J" :D
When did we learn how to structure a sentence? How do we discover when "o" sounds like "uu" or whether "ee" means "ii" ? I feel just as lost trying to find rules for English phonics, but at least I have seen some guides. Help.
I reccomend that you view the "lightbulb tips" on the Duolingo website that accompany the lessons. Perhaps you should retry some of the earlier lessons. There's no shame or penalty in doing so.
- 101
Tips aren't available on mobile (and neither is posting in the forums; I had to use my computer here). :C
- 446
I'm reading this as "Bob motarzjim", but it sounds like "Bob mounorzjim", or is that just me?
Could DL maybe use Arabic names instead of English ones? I'd much prefer to hear/learn names that naturally fit with the language than ones that fit mine and sound out of place on Arabic...
- 587
I've just about learnt the sound of the Arabic for "translator" but it varies and I am still guessing the second consonant as it's impossible to see the tiny script on phone or zoomed in on computer.
you can use this excellent tool (add-on) on computer to maximize arabic fonts : Wudooh (very adjustable qua sizes, used fonts….) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wudooh/nigfaloeeeakmmgndbdcijjegolpjfhn
the second consonant is ت : a " T " / written attached to other consonants it
becomes like a two dotted "i" - the little oblique line on top of it is the vowal
sign for "a" and it is followed by the consonant ر = R so the Second syllable make the sound : Tar..
mutarjim = مُتَرجِم
I think that Arabic has the gender rule as well as my native language. So, what would be the word in case of female translator?
مُتَرْجِمة final letter is a ta marbuta, pronounced a when in isolation, so mutarjima.
- 101
Tips aren't available on mobile (and neither is posting in the forums; I had to use my computer here). :C
