"أَعْرِف صَديقهُ بوب."

Translation: I know his friend Bob.

[raynoor]

does know in this context mean both know a person and know a fact? i dont really know how to explain it but is this like connaître or savoir?

[tsuj1g1r1]

Another word, أعلم, can only mean "know a fact" and not "know a person." But أعرف can mean either.

[karabilo27]

İt can mean both, depends on the sentence

[AbunPang]

Is the verb form really أَعْرِف without a dhamma on the final consonant? According to my grammar book that appears to be jussive mood; is that needed here (maybe because of the question)? Or should it actually be أعْرِفُ (like the TTS is already reading it)?

[tsuj1g1r1]

Yes, you're right, it would technically be أعرفُ in MSA. But this course mixes MSA and dialect and avoids word endings.

[AbunPang]

Thank you, that would make sense. Is there a rule on when verb-final dhamma is omitted in Levant Arabic then (from what I’ve heard in other sentence discussions this seems to be the dialect towards which the course is leaning, right)? As far as I can see, all other present tense verb forms in the course do have a dhamma.

[tsuj1g1r1]

In all the dialects of Arabic that I know, Levant and otherwise, verbs aren't conjugated to any moods but the imperative and subjunctive (and the subjunctive is quite different from that of MSA). The endings -u and -a don't exist in dialect as far as I know, no indicative and no jussive. We do have verb aspect in dialect though, which is something that MSA lacks. We distinguish between "I am eating," "I eat," "I have eaten," and "He wants me to eat." (Imperfect, habitual, perfect, subjunctive). Here are examples in Egyptian Arabic since this is the dialect I know best:

أنا عمّال آكل = ana 3ammaal aakol = I am eating

أنا باكل = ana baakol = I eat

أنا واكل = ana waakel = I have eaten

هو عاوزني آكل = howwa 3awezni 2aakol = He wants me to eat.

[AbunPang]

Wow, you know a lot about Arabic!

To be honest, I know very little besides the linguistic terminology to read an MSA reference grammar, as well as how to use a dictionary :D My vocabulary is probably below 500 words, and even with those I doubt I could form a coherent sentence which is longer than three or four words…

[AbunPang]

I see, very interesting! So I guess “I’m writing a book” then would be أنا عمال كتب كتابا ”ana 3ammaal katab kitaab” rather than MSA أكتب كتابا “aktubu kitaaban” then (do you still spell the object with an added ا when writing colloquial Egyptian Arabic)?

[tsuj1g1r1]

عمال أكتب كتاب

3ammaal akteb ketaab.

We don't decline nouns in dialect except in set expressions borrowed from MSA. No nominative, no accusative, no genitive. Although the construct state is still visible in feminine words, in the sense that the ـة at the end is pronounced "-it" and not "-ah."

The personal prefixes of the imperfect are still present.
أكتب
تكتب
يكتب.

All in all, the grammar of dialect is quite different from that of MSA; it's comparable to the difference between French and Latin, for example. Interestingly though, there are many features that are shared across many or even most dialects.

[AbunPang]

We don't decline nouns in dialect except in set expressions borrowed from MSA.

I’d heard of that, just wasn’t sure if maybe the spelling preserves the old difference, even if it’s not pronounced, as is done in some languages (*cough* English). Good to know it doesn’t.

The personal prefixes of the imperfect are still present. أكتب تكتب يكتب.

Ah, I mixed up first person imperfect آمل with third person perfect أمل! Thanks for the correction!

[tsuj1g1r1]

Wow, you know a lot about Arabic! I'm impressed! Why are you doing this course? But anyway, dialect has no standardized orthography, so everybody spells things their own way. I don't anybody would ever leave the accusative ending on, but whether you spell أنتِ as إنتي is a matter of personal preference.

[ErfanRezamand]

As I know it needed

[antontong]

Please correct the audio for this sentence

[LawrenceHo393102]

I'm finding the audio is now distorted. It's difficult to distinguish the sounds.

[EliasHaglu]

Why is the endings of nouns for her/his sometimes with the extra ت and sometimes not?

[AbunPang]

As far as I understood the ت is a changed ة. ة can only appear at the very end of a word, so it becomes a normal ت if any ending (at least any ending which is actually spelled out in full letters) is attached after it. So for example تَنُّورَة “skirt” → تَنُّورَتِي “my skirt”, تَنُّورَتُهَا “her skirt” etc.

[Tetiana576349]

So what is the actual difference between صديقهٗ and صديقتهُ ?

[ad_87]

صديقهٗ – “His friend” (friend is male)

صديقتهُ – “His friend” (friend is female)

صديقها – “Her friend” (friend is male)

صديقتها – “Her friend (friend is female)

[Nudl_Brudl]

It's extremely difficult to hear the "bob" at the end of the sentence...

[LawrenceHo393102]

I'm finding the audio dsifficult to understand. The sounds cannot all be distinguished.