Learn how to use Arabic dual nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hi everyone, and welcome back to ArabicPod101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 16 - Using Arabic Dual Nouns. Becky here. |
| Nora: I'm Nora. |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn to ask and answer questions about the people in your life. The conversation takes place at Maha’s. |
| Nora: It's between Maha and John. |
| Becky: The speakers are friends, so they will be using informal Standard Arabic. |
| DIALOGUE |
| مها: هل لديك إي أشقاء يا جون؟ |
| جون: نعم, لدي أخ و أخت. |
| مها: كم عمرهما؟ |
| جون: أخي عمره سبعة عشر عاماً و أختي عمرها خمس و عشرون عاماً. ماذا عنك يا مها؟ |
| مها: لدي أختان. كلتاهما أكبر مني في العمر. |
| Becky: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| مها: هل لديك إي أشقاء يا جون؟ |
| جون: نعم, لدي أخ و أخت. |
| مها: كم عمرهما؟ |
| جون: أخي عمره سبعة عشر عاماً و أختي عمرها خمس و عشرون عاماً. ماذا عنك يا مها؟ |
| مها: لدي أختان. كلتاهما أكبر مني في العمر. |
| Becky: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Maha: Do you have any siblings, John? |
| John: Yes, I have a brother and a sister. |
| Maha: How old are they? |
| John: My brother is 17 and my sister is 25. How about you? |
| Maha: I have two sisters. They are both older than I am. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Nora, do families tend to be close in the Middle East? |
| Nora: Family bonds are very important in the Middle East, though family dynamics are not the way they used to be now that social media has become a big part of our lives. |
| Becky: And how about the size of Middle Eastern families; do they tend to be big? |
| Nora: It's very normal in the Middle East to have large nuclear families because in general, having many children is considered a very positive thing. Newlyweds are always pressured to have more than one child to support them when they grow older. |
| Becky: I see. I wonder if this will continue to be the case for long... |
| Nora: Actually, these conceptions of family have slowly been fading because of the spread of globalization in the Middle East. |
| Becky: What’s the Arabic for the word “family”? |
| Nora: عائلة (ʿa'ilah) while أسرة ('usrah) means “nuclear family” |
| Becky: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Nora: اشقاء [natural native speed] |
| Becky: siblings |
| Nora: اشقاء[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: اشقاء [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: أخ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: brother |
| Nora: أخ[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: أخ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: عمر [natural native speed] |
| Becky: age |
| Nora: عمر[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: عمر [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: عام [natural native speed] |
| Becky: year, year old |
| Nora: عام[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: عام [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: أخت [natural native speed] |
| Becky: sister |
| Nora: أخت[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: أخت [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: أكبر [natural native speed] |
| Becky: older, bigger |
| Nora: أكبر[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: أكبر [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: كل [natural native speed] |
| Becky: all, both |
| Nora: كل[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: كل [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: كم [natural native speed] |
| Becky: how (old) |
| Nora: كم[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: كم [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Nora: لدي [natural native speed] |
| Becky: I have |
| Nora: لدي[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: لدي [natural native speed] |
| Becky: And last.. |
| Nora: إي [natural native speed] |
| Becky: any |
| Nora: إي[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Nora: إي [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Nora: هل لديك (hal ladayk) |
| Becky: meaning "Do you have..?" This expression is used to ask someone about both his or her material belongings, like tissues, money, and so on, and his or her friends or family members, but it’s more commonly used to ask about animate entities. |
| Nora: Right, for inanimate objects, you could also use the word معك (ma'ak) that we learned in lesson 4 of this series. For a woman, this would become هل لديك..؟ so we'll just add an i after the second word |
| Becky: This is a Yes/No question |
| Nora: Right, Hal is a question word that is used to ask Yes or No questions. |
| Becky: It's very easy to use; just put it before a sentence without changing anything in the affirmative sentence structure. |
| Nora: The second word ladayk means "you have." It consists of the word lada which means "owning" followed by the second person masculine pronoun ka with an added i in-between because the word lada ends with a vowel. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Nora: Sure. For example, you can say.. هل لديك أصدقاء في هذه المنطقة؟ (hal ladayka ʾaṣdiqāʾ fī haḏihi al-minṭaqah?) |
| Becky: ..which means "Do you have friends in this area?" when talking to a man. Okay, what's the next word? |
| Nora: أي (ʾaī) |
| Becky: meaning "Any" |
| Nora: The word ay is used before a noun to mean "any.” |
| Becky: In the dialogue, it’s used before a plural noun, and just like English it would mean "Any siblings." |
| Nora: It can also be used before singular nouns, forming phrases like أي شيء |
| Becky: meaning "Anything." |
| Nora: The usage in both cases is pretty much the same as English. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Nora: Sure. For example, you can say.. هل تريد أي شيء من الصيدلية؟ (hal turīdu ʾayya šayʾ min al-ṣaīdaliyyah?) |
| Becky: .. which means "Do you need anything from the pharmacy?" |
| Becky: Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Nora: ماذا عنك؟ (māḏā ʿank?) |
| Becky: meaning "What about you?" This expression is a very useful one for turning the tables and getting information without having to repeat the question. |
| Nora: The first word māḏā means "What" and the second word ʿank means "about you" or "concerning you." By changing the pronoun attached to the second word عنك, you can get many other combinations like ماذا عنكي؟, which is the same question, “what about you?” directed to a female, and ماذا عنه؟ meaning "what about him?" |
| Becky: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Nora: Sure. For example, you can say.. ماذا عنكي يا مها؟ |
| Becky: .. which means "What about you, Maha?" (māḏā ʿankī yā mahā?) |
| Becky: Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to answer simple questions regarding social life and how to use dual nouns. |
| Nora: To talk about family members, you need to be able to use the expression lada, which we have already seen in the expression هل لديك, and which was translated as “do you have...” |
| Becky: Listeners, keep in mind that in Standard Arabic, the verb “to have” actually does not exist. |
| Nora: Instead, a special expression that is classified as a preposition and called lada is used to indicate that a person has siblings or a boyfriend or a girlfriend. |
| Becky: Let’s take a look at all the different forms of this expression. First of all, we need to understand that this is not a verb, meaning that it won’t be conjugated like a verb. |
| Nora: Right. In Arabic it’s actually a preposition, but it can be translated to “having.” |
| Becky: Adding pronoun suffixes to this word will allow us to say “I have” or “You have”, and so on. Let’s see all the possible forms together. For example, let’s start with “I have a brother.” |
| Nora: لَدَيْ أَخ. (laday ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: “You have a brother” |
| Nora: لَدَيْكَ أَخ. (ladayka ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: “He has a brother.” |
| Nora: لَدَيْهِ أَخ. (ladayhi ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: “She has a brother.” |
| Nora: لَدَيْها أَخ. (ladayha ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: “We have a brother.” |
| Nora: لَدَيْنا أَخ. (ladaynā ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: “They have a brother.” |
| Nora: لَدَيْهُم أَخ. (ladayhum ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: If “they” refers to a feminine subject, then it becomes... |
| Nora: لَدَيْهُنَّ أَخ. (ladayhunn ʾaḫ.) |
| Becky: Ok, how can we form a question, in case we want to ask about someone else’s family? |
| Nora: To form a question, simply add hal هل before any of these sentences, meaning “Do you..” |
| Becky: Let’s use the same example. How would you say “Do you have a brother?” |
| Nora: هَل لَدَيْكَ أَخ؟ (hal ladayka ʾaḫ?) |
| Becky: Let’s also give the Arabic for the word “sister” |
| Nora: “sister” is أُخت (ʾuḫt.) |
| Becky: And what about “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” |
| Nora: “boyfriend” is حَبيب (ḥabīb), and “girlfriend” is حَبيبَة (ḥabībah) |
| Becky: Ok, now let’s move on and talk about Dual Nouns. |
| Nora: Standard Arabic has a very special form that doesn’t exist in English called the dual form. It is used to imply that there are two of a thing, and not more. For more than two, the plural form is used. |
| Becky: In this lesson, we will focus on how to form the dual form for nouns, using the dialogue as an example. |
| Nora: In the dialogue, we have: لدي أختان. (ladyy ʾuḫtān.) |
| Becky: Meaning “I have two sisters.” |
| Nora: Let’s take a look at the word أختان (ʾuḫtān) meaning “two sisters”. The singular form of this word is أخت (ʾuḫt) meaning “sister.” We just attached the suffix ان (ān) to it and got the dual form. |
| Becky: Let’s make another example using the word “brother”. How do you say “two brothers”? |
| Nora: أخان |
| Becky: and “two pens”? |
| Nora: قلمان |
| Becky: Adjectives take the same suffixes as the nouns they describe. Nora, can you give us an example? |
| Nora: رجلان طويلان (rajulaan tawiilaan) |
| Becky: Which means “Two tall men.” |
| Nora: So if we look at the word طويلان meaning “tall”, we can see that it is formed of طويل followed by ان |
| Becky: Is it the same for feminine nouns? |
| Nora: For feminine nouns, we have to add the feminine ت to the suffix |
| Becky: What’s “Two tall girls”? |
| Nora: فتاتان طويلتان (fataataan tawiilataan). Let’s look at the word طويلتان meaning “tall.” It’s made up of طويل followed by ت and ان |
| Becky: Okay. Let’s wrap up with a couple of sample sentences |
| Nora: مَعي كُرسيان. خُذ وْاحِد. (maʿī kursīān. ḫuḏ wāḥid.) |
| Becky: "I have two chairs. Take one." |
| Nora: رَأَيْتُ شَجَرَتان كَبيرَتان. (raʾaytu šaǧaratān kabīratān.) |
| Becky: "I saw two big trees." |
Outro |
| Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Nora: إلى اللقاء (ʾilaā al-liqaāʾ) |
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