"زَوْجَتِك أُسْتاذة يا كَري."
Translation:Your wife is a professor, Carrie.
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'Nonsense' sentences are useful for learning because they require you to draw on your knowledge of the rules, case markings etc to find the correct answer, instead of relying on context (e.g. 'wife' must be correct because husbands only have wives). It provides a deeper learning experience than just memorising sentences you'll use day to day. So ironically, it seems the narrower your world view is, the stronger your learning may be! I'll look forward to seeing a similar level of definitely-not-homophobic outrage in the 'My dog is generous' forum comments.
This is such a key point! The question of "would we hear this in an Arabic-speaking country?" is orthogonal to the question of "is it instructive for us to hear this while learning Arabic on Duo?"
At the risk of letting my sarcasm be misunderstood: I've been to several Spanish-speaking countries, and no one in my experience has ever said "mi oso bebe cerveza..."
And for that matter I BEEN to Japan and NONE of the people I met had dogs who actually sold hats. I'm telling you, you will NEVER hear someone say "私の犬は帽子を売ります”!!
It's still useful, as a learner, to encounter such unexpected sentences.
Nice try for rationalization but... buddy it is too obvious to do it in Arabic course ^^
Jenny my dear, i believe the aim is to actually see how to use words not to cram their examples as a necessary exoression, if you arr keen to learn the language i think the best thing is to remove the concept of what you think should be and grab how to use words to form your own sentence.
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I would like to hear the TTS engine say this. But maybe with a few ْ added.
سو ماني أَنْغَري كومَّنْتْس. كَلْم رَيْت دَوْن.
Carrie and Judy is trying to teach us the proper usage of feminine and masculine noun and it's importance to Arabic. For eg , we can easily ( mistakenly) translate it into husband because the sentance end with woman Carrie. So Duo makes us think properly before translating.
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I liked the gay couple, but it seems like most of the 'couple' sentences are on him. I think it whold be more intresting if there wold be more couples... like Rosa and Seth and Ibrahim and Mike and so on...
yeah they gay, keep scrolling also is there supposed to be a case marking on "زوجتك"? in the audio, it sounds like a fatha or a kasra on the kaaf, but i would assume it should be a damma?
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I might be wrong, but I think that the audio is wrong for the most of the Arabic sentences. It's a bit better for the individual words, but they add a lot of unnecessary "-tun" to every word without any reason
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In Arabic there are a lot of varieties but I think that in 'Arabīyat ul-fuṣḥá' wich is the 'standard arabic' based on the reading in the Quran the way they pronounce is the right 'traditional' way (with the -tun in the end of words in the middele of santences). I think in 'modern' standard arabic they don't pronounce that...
Jamie521 oldestguru nizzanc Aurlien249681 brianwould:
Jamie521 and Aurlien249681, you're correct. It should be with Damma
زوجُكِ
For "زوجَك" , it's slang/dialect.
nizzanc brianwould, Modern Standard Arabic uses -tun, -tan, -tin, -ka, -ki, and any sound ending. All of them are taught in Arabic schools as endings's the key to understand Arabic perfectly. But in daily conversation, we may omit the endings.
DL team mix slang and standard in Arabic course. Whilst, in other courses like Chinese (which has multiple dialects) don't do that. Weird
i find it very annoying - you have to really listen "through" this to hear the words and just ignore the "atoon atun" etc nonsense.. I asked some Syrian friends and they said no we never say that...
Not being homophobic or anything, but if ur gonna used lgbtq+ terms then please use them on other languages. Arabic is a language that mainly Muslims speak and obviously Arabic originates from Arab speaking countries and in Islam and some Arab countries its actually considered a sin/crime to be gay or what not. When mentioning stuff like this on an Arab course where the majority of people learning are Muslim its quite offensive and may make some people feel disgusted or put off. This is no hate towards the lgbtq+ or anybody who supports it, I respect them but please Duolingo, be careful about some things you say on different language courses as it can be really disrespectful to some cultures and beliefs.
Dignifying a response of "disgust" to a fictional gay couple /is/ homophobic. Keep in mind that there are LGBTQ+ Arab people too.
that's not always the case, just because your arab doesn't mean hate gay! everyone should be respected and stop trying to make arab people look bad
im arab, i dont hate gays at all! im just saying that some peoples beliefs are different though, and it might anger some. I was just telling duo to be careful on what things they promote to certain people.
Since we are learning a new language with gender differentiations, it would be helpful for beginners like me, not to get confused further with doubly difficult sentence constructions. Carrie being a woman's name, it was hard to find a wife for her. :)
I was confused at first, but now that I know they're doing that it makes it easier to know I'm not wrong.
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This was the second LGBT question for me. When i read the first one, i must say i was surprised enough to take a screenshot to forward. I had to read it a few times to make sure i was understanding it correctly! It was only when i got to this questiom i thought to check if anybody had commented!?! Lol. I guess it is important for learning to differentiate between masculine and feminine. As a few have said, some of Duo's previous sentences are very silly to say the least. I am also surprised that some people are still wondering if 'Carrie' is a male or female.
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It appears that the makers of this course have no idea about what they are doing. I seriously doubt that this sentence would have any meaning in Saudi Arabia or other islamic countries. One could easily get in trouble in some Arabic-speaking countries for saying the stuff learned here. It started with calling a professor or a doctor "weird", and then went on with the dudes having skirts and now with the wife of Carrie. While these things would be completely OK in Denmark (and I personally support the right of all people to be free and happy), the law in most Arabic speaking countries is very different from the Western law and breaking it might have strong consequences. Are the makers of the course aware of the cultural etiquette of that part of the world?
I'm a lgtb woman learning arabic, there are lots of people from arabic origins outside of islamic countries, lots of them lgtb. And someday you will be able to pronounce this sentences anywhere in the world without getting in trouble. I think Duolingo is doing it perfect.
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I hope your optimistic views will materialize. I am quite pessimistic about the matter, but I hope I'm wrong and you're right
I am learning Arabic to improve my own teaching in the local integration course. And yes, we have to address issues like lgtq+, among others. I understand the cultural ressentiments but that is no reason to perpetuate them.
I'm a trans woman learning Arabic to read the Qur'an and get to know the culture. It's a beautiful language, I hope I can safely visit some of the Middle East eventually (Iran would accept me, I guess, but they speak Farsi so..)
I (a man) flirted with guys in Egypt already nearly 20 years ago.
I didn't get into any trouble. Some of them flirted back.
While the world and especially Arabs like to pretend that gay people don't exist in the Arabic world, the reality is, fortunately, completely different.
Egypt is one of the least Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world so the example is quite a bad one.
On the other hand try to be publicly atheistic there and see how that fares you. People have been jailed for expressing their opinions in Islamic countries. Do not be naive.
what does this have to do with anything? DuoLingo is just trying to reinforce sentence construction so that you can learn your own vocabulary and properly construct sentences. All that matters is that the sentence is technically correct, not whether it's culturally sensitive. More to the point, if you started studying this course with the expectation of just memorizing phrases, you have completely missed the point.
Look dude, I'm a woman and my girlfriend is from Saudi Arabia. Her native language is Arabic, which is the only reason I'm trying to learn it, so I'm personally very happy with the inclusion and she would probably be too.
And btw, all her friends (from Saudi Arabia) were very happy for her when she told them she has a girlfriend, and even wanted to plan our wedding! So I'm very optimistic about things changing some time in the future.
Exactly! I'm a woman too and the whole reason I became inspired to learn Arabic was because of my good friend from Egypt (we're both LGBTQ). She was born in Saudi, is MusRab, and honestly her friends all know about it and range from chill to very enthusiastic so count me in among the optimists. I hope we're right! <3
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There's quite a big chunk of the Earth's surface where such a thing is possible right now.
In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to establish same-sex marriage by law. Since then same-sex marriage has also been established by law in Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), Norway (2009), Sweden (2009), Portugal (2010), Iceland (2010), Argentina (2010), Denmark (2012), Brazil (2013), France (2013), Uruguay (2013), New Zealand[c] (2013), Luxembourg (2015), the United States (2015), Ireland (2015), Colombia (2016), Finland (2017), Malta (2017), Germany (2017), Australia (2017), Austria (2019), Taiwan (2019), Ecuador (2019), and the United Kingdom (2020).
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hahaha. Girls/women do have wives in quite a few countries. Did you really not know? It's fairly recent legislation.
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MDJubaidul, "Can" is followed by the infinitive without the "to". So, "how can a girl HAVE a wife?"
Carrie is a woman; you can tell this from the Arabic suffix -ak -ik. If you were speaking to a man, you would use the suffix -ik -ak instead. See the lesson notes: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/ar/Family-2/tips-and-notes
Except that you've got it backwards. -ak is masculine, -ik is feminine (but the Duolingo lesson is correct).
If so, it must be normal to see a sentence like "my dog has a husband". Why not?
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Of course. After all, the challenge is understanding. You or me can perfectly understand the meaning of that sentence because it's grammatically correct. People learning English might struggle understanding it and, in that sense, your sentence is useful in an environment like this.
Possibly, but not here. The "your" here is "-ik" not "-ak", meaning "you" refers to a woman.
"Zawj" = husband
"Zawjak" = your husband (you are a man)
"Zawjik" = your husband (you are a woman)
"Zawja" = wife
"Zawjatak" = your wife (you are a man)
"Zawjatik" = your wife (you are a woman)
Carrie = female woman name, has Carrie a wife ??? is Carrie a lesbian????
Yes, Carrie and Judy are two women and they are married. This is legal in many countries in 2020.
I assume Carrie is a woman. So, instead of a wife, she should have a husband, right? So, the first word should be 'Zaujatak' NOT 'Zaujatik'. Can anybody explain this? Or it is just a plain mistake?
It is not a mistake; Carrie and Judy are two women who are married. This is legal in many parts of the world.
I see. Thanks for the reply. From where I come from, same sex marriage is considered a taboo, and NOT recognized by law.
Sure. Still, one would hope that you would be able to (or better: be willing to) speak to/about people who do participate in such institutions, in Arabic.
Homosexuality is not well seen within the Arab countries... Is it a way of protesting?