"ما اسْمَك يا أُسْتاذ؟"
Translation:What is your name, sir?
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Ok, I'm brand new to Arabic. It teaches that اِبْنَك is for when you are talking to a make and اِبْنِك for a female. I understand that. But I see so many comments on here that there is something wrong with this, and dialect issues. So could someone very simply explain what the correct way is? And lets go with this modern standard Arabic for now. My friends are from Jordan, so I can ask about dialect late,
It should be اِبْنُكَ when adressing one male and اِبْنُكِ when adressing one female. Ka for male and Ki for female. The N ن has nothing to do with this.
In many dialects, ustaaz is used as sir. In MSA, Sayyid and Sayyidah are the official terms for sir and ma'am. Fun fact: many dialects such as Egyptian Arabic use Madaam from french as the word for ma'am. Source: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/sir-mr-miss-maam.560425/
I wonder about the prononciation; it seems there are many examples of the last vowel in one word changes, or even removes, the first vowel in the next one. Could some benevolent soul elaborate a bit, please?
rbbekhus,
You can pronounce the sentences in several ways =>
(1) "masmUka" or "masmUk" -- according to the standard grammar (or "masmAk" from some local dialects).
So, here ا (alif) in "2ismUk" can be omitted and ا in "maa" can be shortened to meet the سْ (sin sukuun).
(2) "maa 2ismUka" or "maa 2ismUk" -- according to the standard grammar (but, I don't know the dialect version for this way. Perhaps, it's similar, ie. "Maa ismAk").
I hope it helps. If there is a mistake from me, hope some will correct it :))
Nb: recitation of Quran and daily conversation are not the same.
Not Arabic and less advanced than you, but from my understanding when a word begins with ا, it goes silent when put after a word ending with a vowel. That includes all اَ, اِ and اُ. When there is a hamza, it acts as a stop. So words beginning with variations of أ retain their starting vowel.
Okay, I think I understand that there are differences between MSA and what is actually pronounced in this example (e.g., اِبْنَك vs. اِبْنُكَ when addressing a single man, with the former being dialect). However, I hear her distinctly in this example say اِسْمَكَ with an additional short [a] at the end. Why is that?
soobee620, that is a good question! I am wondering the same. Hope the moderators will explain this matter. :))
1021
soobee620, thank you. I'm so glad someone else has exactly the problem I have been having. And thank you for setting out the problem so clearly. I have tried before, but possibly in a more muddled way.
Katie,
So, was this your previous question? I think we had some miscommunication in other threads :))
As, highly possible, the mods would not respond this issue in the near future, let's me try to answer this matter regarding the sentence above now.
(1) All dialects don't spell َك "-ka" -- which is pronounced only in Standard.
(2) "-mak" مَك is a dialect while, in Standard, it is "-muk" مُك (informal) or "-muka" مُكَ (formal).
Conclusion: "-maka" مَكَ is a fusion of both Standard and some dialects. Or, if it is not, the sound is a part of the audio glitch that is similar to audio errors in other lessons.
Please correct me if I have made any mistake :))
- 1793
My guess is that -maka here is a mispronunciation (as so often by this text-to-speech engine). This course tries to stick to possessive suffixes as they are used in dialects, -ak and -ik.
In MSA, it should be -muka as you already noticed.
Having said that, -maka is possible in MSA, too. This depends on the case of the possessed thing. In this sentence here, it is the subject of the sentence (think of nominative case), hence, it is -muka (or -muki). In another sentence, it might be the object (think of accusative case) and then it is -maka (or -maki).
Yes, CarstenLuc! My explanation is just for the case of the sentence above. :))
For some other cases, it will be different.
- 1021
Thanks, Away54. I understood that -mak was dialect, and that -muka was MSA. What disturbed soobee620 and me was precisely this -maka ending, which did not match the -mak of the text or of the DuoLingo lesson about how to address in the masculine and in the feminine. OK. So it's either a fusion (but does ANYONE talk in "fusion"?) or a glitch in the audio. However, it's so prevalent, that I'm surprised more people haven't commented on it.
(1) "Thanks, Away54."
You're welcome! :))
(2) "Does ANYONE talk in "fusion"?"
I don't know, it's too funny. Perhaps, it's Go Ten and Trunks from Dragon Ball Z, they can make a fusion oftentimes.
(3) "However, it's so prevalent, that I'm surprised ..."
Yes, same here. I'm also surprised :)
- 1021
hahaha. But "Go Ten and Trunks from Dragon Ball Z," is Greek to me, as they say. I expect it's some fantasy thing.
I'm wondering what if the sentence is for a female interlocutor. But, last time I had heard it was -mika!
Yes, it is in almost all examples, although if you click on individual words in the sentence, the final "a" is missing in her pronunciation. So frustrating!
Interesting! Yet, surprisingly, nobody asks about this, soobee620.
It seems Duolingo uses the -ka sound for both 2-person masculine singular and feminine singular while, in MSA (Arabic fuSa), -ka is for 2nd-person masculine singular only. For 2nd-person feminine singular, Standard Grammar says, "-ki".
Note: Arabic is one of the most stable languages. We can compare between Quranic Verses or hadeeth narrations and MSA, all the ending sounds and its grammar are similar. (If there is any change in Arabic, it is very few).
Hal would be like saying Is .....Ex."Is your name, sir?" Which doesn't make sense in this sentence.
Ma is what is .....Ex."What is your name, sir?"
You would say hal if asking a yes/no question like "Is your name vicky?"
- 1021
Even funnier: they give "'am" (without any "ma'") as an option for the translation of this sentence!!!
I am Iranian and we have Arabic lessons in schools. our book sais that اِسمَكَ is for male and اِسمَكِ is for female. Ka for male and ki for female.
Indeed. The last letter will give you the hint :
اِسْمُكَ = اِسْمُ + كَ
'the name' + 'of you (single male)' = your name (to one male) ;
اِسْمُكِ = اِسْمُ + كِ
'the name' + 'of you (single female)' = your name (to one female) ;
If you change the last vowel of the first part, then the declension (then the role of the word in the sentence), changes :
كَتَبْتَ اسْمَكَ = you wrote your name (speaking to a male)
note that, speaking to a male, you keep كَ , but اِسْمَ ends with "a" (a fatHa), which is the grammatical rule for accusative case (direct object case)... well, for singular words. It is a bit trickier with plurals and duals.
Hope that helps you!
