"ما اسْمِك وَأَيْن بَيْتِك يا أُسْتاذة؟"
Translation:What is your name and where is your house, ma'am?
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Ma'am should really be one word, I'm not sure why it was broken up like that.
It's a bug with Duolingo. Report it to them and hopefully they'll fix it soon. Here's an example of a bug I've sent: https://imgur.com/user/CcfUk2019/posts
As a dialect learner, I was much happier to see the version they had hahaha
yes but which dialect? I can assure you this isn't Egyptian dialect, or Gulf dialect, or Iraqi dialect, or Hassaniya dialect, or Maghrebi dialect... so effectively around 80% of native Arabic speakers just got excluded :)
The course is for proper traditional arabic. Not for dialects. Dialects are considered informal and have no specific rules. Egyptian wouldn't even use the same words, it would be إسمك إيه
So I wasn't tripping when I saw it written and pronunced incorrectly. Shukran
I wonder how the tts compares to a real speech, in terms of pauses and connecting sounds of the words. When I check word by word, I can get it, but when it's the whole sentence, I struggle a lot to understand
1625
The word "ism," meaning "name," is pronounced without the initial vowel unless it starts an utterance. So "maa ismuka" is pronounced "ma smuka" (A long vowel cannot be followed by two consonants in a row in Arabic, so the vowel is also shortened). We indicate this in writing by beginning the word with an 2alif without a hamza, ا rather than إ. There are five other nouns (that you are likely to encounter, that is, plus four more that are more common in Classical Arabic than they are in MSA) that exhibit that same phenomenon:
اِمْرَأَةٌ (woman)
اِبْنٌ (son)
اِبْنَةٌ (daughter)
اِثْنَانِ (two, masculine)
اِثْنَتَانِ (two, feminine)
Honestly, this student was surprised to see استاذة given the meaning of "ma(d)am." He is far more used to seeing سيدة used instead.
I would suggest to translate "ustaadha" as "miss". "Ma'am" is not used in writing and is also very contextual, whereas "miss" is a perfectly acceptable and respectable way of addressing an unknown female just about everywhere.
Using "miss" in this way may be idiomatic in the US, but certainly not in the UK: most women I know would be really enraged if someone addressed them as "miss". I think also that one of the problems here is that English just does not have a formal register in the way that Arabic has, especially on this side of the Atlantic (the Yanks are somewhat more formal than we are). On the other hand, you can't just say "what is your name and where is your house?": it sounds much too abrupt. One would probably say "Could you tell me your name, and where you live?" or something like that. So there are equivalents of what the Arabic is doing, it's just that they are not literal translations of the Arabic.
"Miss" is arguably more flattering because it presumes the person is a young lady as opposed to an old hag. If someone calls you "ma'am in American is generally means you look middle aged. That is what happens in a time of youth worship. Most people don't want to point out that another person looks to be on the downhill side of old.
Miss is actually short for 'mistress'. Mistress is only used now when referring to the head mistress but I think even for that 'head teacher' is preferred these days. The word mistress came to mean a single woman who is having an affair with a married man. If you say 'his mistress', you mean the woman he is having an affair with. When you don't know a woman's age, calling her mistress may make her feel like an elderly spinster who was never eligible for marriage due to some flaw in her looks or personality. It's also often used sarcastically by men who want to annoy or belittle a woman in a sexist manner.
Wow -- those are the alternatives, young lady or old hag?
Seems to my tht you just bought into the "youth worship."
Really? It doesn't make much difference to me, but I find it disconcerting to be addressed as "miss," given the number of years since I've been one. Seems to me that it's a recent development, one limited to the northern states.
But you can't call anyone "teacher" as if it were a vocative. However "professor" would be correct in this sentence. But it's also normal calling a professor ma'am.
Miss would have been used for school teachers years ago in England, and it is used as a title for women who work in the prison service too. Ma'am is used to address an officer in the military. These cases are irrespective of marital status. In U.S. 'miss' is used with the first name when a nanny is addressing her ward. I noticed Arabic speakers sometimes make the mistake of addressing a woman Miss (firstname), I know they are just trying to be polite, but it really sounds like they are talking to a three year old.
In the UK, if gendered polite forms of address are used at all, often by people in a service role like waiter or police officer, speaking to a member of the public, it would be 'Sir' and 'Madam' (or 'Miss' if the speaker regards the woman as younger) rather than 'ma'am'. "Would Madam like some ratatouille?'" "Excuse me, Madam, I believe you are sitting in this gentleman's reserved seat..." Business letters to people whose name and gender you don't know traditionally began "Dear Sir or Madam". But in our increasingly informal society in the UK ,these terms are rarer, and might as often be used ironically or humorously as in earnest.
It's not normal in England to call a professor ma'am. Professor is a title granted by a university which employs a graduate and Doctor is granted by a university where they studied (Phd). Dr. and Profesor can be used for both men and women. 'Professor' would not be correct for addressing a school teacher.
I find it funny that nobody finds it creepy on the male version of this sentence, lol
- 1386
This is a very bizarre sentence. Why would someone ask someone's name(meeting them for the first time) and then ask where their house is in the same sentence?
- 1625
Taking the history of a patient perhaps? But the question should have been "Where do you live?" not "Where is your house?"
There are many sentences in duolingo that would not actually be said. They are meant to teach the language.
I think that the problem is that the course hasn't introduced سكن "to reside" and is working with the available vocabulary to this point. Thus, where is your house? Where do you reside is less creepy.
That's a kind of threatening question to ask a teacher! Is there a way to ask "where do you live?" in a more general sense of area, rather than specific address?
أين تسكن؟ (ayna taskun?) 'where do you live?' for 2nd person singular male
أين تسكنين؟ (ayna taskuniin?) for second person singular female.
ma and 'am were displayed as two seperate words, this is confusing because ma'am is one word.
The spoken texts in Arabic are so fast that I cannot understand them. Can you slow down the speaking voice please.
In previous exercises professor has been the translation for istatha; why is it suddenly ma'am?
- 1625
It comes from a Persian word that means "master of a craft." It evolved to mean "teacher," and from there, it became "sir/ma'am."
Strange, half of the sentence was already filled for me and when I completed it, it told me I have typos? How can I possibly have typos in a drag and drop exercise?
Using a M word for F, or vice versa, seems to produce a typo error message. I agree it seems weird.
- 1625
That's because they only differ by one letter and Duolingo's policy is to count one extra or missing letter as a typo unless it forms a completely new word.
- 1030
Just noticed that up until here most of the basic vocabulary is 80% similar to hebrew
- 1012
Have you tried Hebrew on Duolingo, phuvtuo? I did, and found we were spoilt in Arabic. We were taught the alphabet in a very gentle way. For the Hebrew course, you have to work on it yourself. I've given up for the time being.
Ma'am is coming as two different units, not as a single unit which is confusing.
It is okay to say "2ustaadha". But, if we pronounce the ending sound, the phrase is: "yaa 2ustadhatu" يا أستاذةُ (and not "2ustadhatan").
You can use it to address a teacher or professor, of course. If you don't know a woman's name, you can use it to address her, like you would say "ma'am" in American English.
She says: masmika wa.. but there is no dhamma on the kaf so i think it should be masmik wa.. Is there a native speaker here??
In the nominative case, 2ismik is a Slang (e.g., Levantine). There should be no sound for kaf as, in Slangs, people never spell the ending sounds. However, they don't use maa to question name (because maa is Standard).
If we follow Standard for the sentence above, it is: maa 2ismUki or masmuki (or just masmuk).
So, masmika is a combination of MSA and some dialects, ie. a new language created by Duolingo?
- 1012
There are so many "a"s added to words in the voiced version, when there are no "a"s in the spelled version, that it sounds positively Italian-accent. ismikA, ainA, baitikA!!!
- 1012
Ha ha ha: when I translated ustedha as madam, it accepted it, but when lady, it said it was mistaken. In England the one is as unlikely as the other.
I spelled it "where's your house", rather than "where is your house", and it was marked wrong. That should totally be allowed as a valid answer.
Both "اسمك" and "اِسمك" are the same. It is kasra (and not Damma) at the Alif (ie. The Harakaat are optional).
For the sentence above, we can pronounce maa 2ismuki or masmuki if we follow Standard Arabic ("maa 2ismik" or "masmik" if we follow Duolingo's style)
On comprend rien quand on ecrit madame votre reponse est professeur. Si on met prof. Votre reponse est ma'ma
i thought the option said "woman" not "ma'am" so i didn't choose it, and it kade my answer incorrect ;-)
"ma'am" is NOT even a proper English word. It's a slang used in American Southern states and it should not be used in the educational software like this one.
Interesting ... the Cambridge dictionary doesn't seem to know that. Perhaps you should let them know. "In Britain, used to address the queen or a woman of high rank in particular organizations, such as the army or the police."
It all depends who wrote the article. We can conclude it must have been someone from aforementioned American South. So please put more effort into your attempt to be sarcastic and smart.
Did you note that the definition is from the Cambridge dictionary? The Oxford dictionary says much the same thing. I very much doubt that someone from the southern US would be hired by either of those two English universities to write definitions for British English.
1.1British A term of address for female royalty. 1.2British A term of address for a female officer in the police or armed forces who is senior to the speaker. https://www.lexico.com/definition/ma'am
That might have been the case in the past, but today's reality is different. And I sincerely doubt that people from the American South know or care about definitions from the (long gone) glory past of the British Empire (see: Boris for PM).
Today, they just vote for Trump. "Yes, ma'am!"