"اَلْسَّفَر إِلى ٱلْبَحْر اَلْأَبْيَض اَلْمُتَوَسِّط مِن مَدينَتي سَهْل."

Translation: Traveling to the Mediterranean Sea from my city is easy.

[CTfalcoUSA]

What’s the story behind the name “White Middle Sea”?

[RonEnson]

Wikipedia notes that Turkish uses "white sea" and it may be to contrast with the Black Sea

[GandaBanda]

Greek too

[TinoAriza]

-- pronunciation should have مَدِيْنَتِيْ -- but it currently (28 Sep 2019) has مَدِيْنَتَيْ --

[applebee]

They fixed it, nice one TinoArixa!

[KatieC993112]

No, they haven't fixed it! On my phone it sounds medinata-i, and another tun earlier, but i cant go back to check, otherwise my message disappears and I have to rewrite it AGAIN.

[Away54]

Three months later (December 6, 2020 after KatieC's) it is still the same, "madiinatai", when we hear the complete audio. But, for the word-to-word audio, it is correct, "madiinatii" (ie. when we hover the respective word in the question section).

[GandaBanda]

15 April 2021 it's still the same.

[applebee]

I think that 'travel' as well as 'travelling' should be correct in this sentence.

[Susa145706]

I do not understand why the pronunciation adds an -uu/oo/un sound when it is clearly not written. eg سَهْل why is 'un' being said at the end. اَلْأَبْيَض al'abyad so end sound is written as 'd' but voice pronounces duu.

[Away54]

Susa145706,

For the sentence above, if we follow Formal Standard, the sentence will be:

السَّفَرُ إلى البحرِ الأبيضِ المُتوسِّطِ مِن مدينتي سهلٌ.

"2as-safaru 2ilaa 2al-baHri 2al-2abyaDi 2al-mutawassiTi min madiinatii sahl(un)".

It is sahlun سهلٌ because the word is in the nominative case -- as خبر of السفر. And, it is 2al-2abyaDi الأبيضِ because it is in the genitive case, as نعت of البحر. So, if you have really heard 2al-2abyaDu الأبيضُ in the complete sentence audio, it is incorrect except if they spell it by the word-per-word (ie. outside the sentence, as there is no case involved).

[fkhalfani]

Is there a difference in Arabic on the word "travel" and "traveling"? or are we just supposed to understand based on the context?

[Hebzzzzzzz]

Travel, as in the noun, would be السفر. Travel and travelling, as in verbs in the present tense, would be يسافر (for a masculine subject) or تسافر (for a feminine subject).

(This is what I have understood)

[fkhalfani]

Ahh I see, thanks!