"تي شيرْت أَبْيَض وَبُنِّيّ"

Translation: a white and brown t-shirt

[AhmedBatoo]

I wrote a brown and white t-shirt but it was wrong

[W_U_R]

You must write both adjectives in the correct order, i.e. a white and brown.

[RajasDaithankar]

@Ahmed - Why did you write brown and white instead of white and brown? Any particular reason?

[Julkon5]

Please help me with the word "white" - I have problems with pronunciation of the word, every time I hear something different. Could somebody give me a transliteration please?

[akeem141828]

I wrote brown and white adjectives in the same order but still got it wrong
The only difference between my answers and the correction was that I started my answers with capital letters and the corrections was in small letter

[RajasDaithankar]

Did you write 'white and brown' or 'brown and 'white'?

If you wrote brown and white then it tells me أبيض is brown and بني is white.

You tell me whether it's correct? Putting capital letters on adjectives is another error on top, which is sumilar to dropping capital letters in proper nouns and saying "His name is donald" instead of "His name is Donald".

[Kallistrate]

The issue I have with the translation is that it is not the correct English translation of the phrase. It's highly unlikely anyone is correctly guessing "brown" and "white" out of all the available colors, and in any official translation, it's correctly translated to "brown and white" because that is how English works and that's what the question is asking for: the phrase in English. If the question is meant to test understanding of a particular word in order, it should ask about "A white t-shirt and a brown t-shirt" not a "white and brown t-shirt," because while the former is acceptable in English, the latter is not. The correct order in Arabic is clear, because we can read it in the question. Putting it into an incorrect order in English makes it a faulty translation.

While this is obviously an Arabic lesson, the answer to "translate this phrase" is, correctly, "brown and white" not "white and brown." The goal is to teach the language in a way that flows, feels natural, and makes sense, not penalize people for the technicality of being correct...but not the "right" kind of correct.

[RajasDaithankar]

@Kallistrate - Who made this rule that you cannot say white and brown?

Secondly this course is about learning Arabic and demonstrating what you learnt. Not about providing speeches on English grammar.

If you cannot demonstrate what ابيض means, you should find an easier way to correct your response rather than writing a long essay to prove why your answer should be accepted.

And lastly, please let me reiterate, this course is about learning Arabic - not providing "translations". That comes much later in a bilingual person's life, after they have proven their prowess in the second language they are learning. Not during the learning phase itself, which is here and now.

Regards.

[KatieC993112]

I couldn't agree with you more. Ah, except that may well be that there is a "rule" about the order of colours in English. But all your other points overrule the importance of any such rule. We are here to learn Arabic. And that's hard enough without wasting energy on producing an idiomatic, fluent English translation.

[RajasDaithankar]

@Katie - Heartfelt thanks for your sensible comments.

As to the "rule", I don't think its a hard and fast rule as much as a convention.. just a tradition or legacy that people get attached to, mostly due to convenience.. for example "red and white" flows better in speech, when compared with "white and red" etc.. which is totally subjective.

Its like a Korean telling you that pronouncing "stress" is extremely difficult (because you cannot have two consonants together in Korean, let alone three, so they are not used to saying such words)... That doesn't mean we should always send "stress" to the back in the word order.

By the way, see a good discussion on this topic here https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/292279/is-there-any-particular-rule-for-specific-colours-in-adjective-order

Regards.

[KatieC993112]

Interesting. But I would slightly disagree with you. Though eg red and white as opposed to white and red may seem subjective, and has no logic, it is, I think more deeply embedded in the language than you suggest. And indeed, it is by not following such lesser rules that a non-native speaker can be detected. I suppose this form of rule falls under "idiom".

[bgcervantes]

It's true. A non-native speaker is not always aware of how certain words are grouped together. "In the English language, collocation refers to a natural combination of words that are closely affiliated with each other. Some examples are "pay attention", "fast food", "make an effort", and "powerful engine". "

[RobSprankle]

a white and brown tee shirt is the same thing.

[KatieC993112]

Yes, it is, but as I said above, I actually got it wrong by misunderstanding which colour was which in Arabic. So I was glad that my mistake was pointed out. Idiomatic English was not the priority. Also, however strongly you may feel about the natural order in English, have a look at the link that RajasDaithankar posted for a discussion on the subject. It seems to show that there is no strong rule for these collocations.