Learn to make comparisons and express our preferences
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Danya: مرحباً, اسمي دانيا. |
| May: و أنا مي. |
| Timothy: Timothy here! Beginner, Lesson 14 - Haircut. Hi, my name is Timothy, and I am joined here by Danya. |
| Danya: مرحباً. Hello everyone and welcome back to ArabicPOD101. |
| Timothy: I'm also joined by May. أهلاً مي. Hi, May. |
| May: Hi. |
| Timothy: All right, so what do we have going on for today's lesson? |
| May: The focus of this lesson is comparative adjectives. |
| Timothy: The conversation is between Nadia who is going to be played by May and the hairdresser who will be played by Danya. |
| May: This conversation will be in standard Arabic. |
| Timothy: Don't forget that you can leave us a comment on this lesson. |
| Danya: So if you have a question, or some feedback, please leave us comment! |
| Timothy: It's very easy to do. Just stop by ArabicPod101.com, click on comments, enter your comment and name, and that's it. |
| Danya: We're looking forward to hearing from you! |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| نادية: هل تستطيعين قص شعري أقصر بقليل؟ |
| مصففة الشعر: حسنا. هكذا؟ |
| نادية: لا َ! اتركيه أطول من ذلك بقليل . |
| مصففة الشعر: هل هذا أفضل؟ |
| نادية: نعم. أحبه هكذا أكثر. |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. |
| الآن مع الترجمة. |
| نادية: هل تستطيعين قص شعري أقصر بقليل؟ |
| Timothy: Can you cut my hair just a little shorter? |
| مصففة الشعر: حسنا. هكذا؟ |
| Timothy: Sure. Like this? |
| نادية: لا َ! اتركيه أطول من ذلك بقليل . |
| Timothy: No! Keep it a little longer than that. |
| مصففة الشعر: هل هذا أفضل؟ |
| Timothy: Is this better? |
| نادية: نعم. أحبه هكذا أكثر. |
| Timothy: Yes. I like it like this more. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Timothy: So do you get your haircut in the hair salon? |
| Danya: Yes. |
| Timothy: Yes. |
| Danya: Of course. |
| May: Yeah. |
| Timothy: Of course. And who cuts your hair? |
| Danya: The hairdresser. |
| Timothy: And is that usually a guy or a girl? |
| Danya: A female, a girl. |
| Timothy: A female. |
| Danya: Yeah. |
| May: I personally don't mind either. |
| Timothy: So in the Middle East, you can get your hair cut by a guy? |
| May: Yeah. |
| Danya: Yeah. |
| Timothy: Really? |
| Danya: Yeah. Woman hair salons, yeah absolutely. |
| Timothy: Okay. That sounds kind of weird for me because I thought that you wanted to cover your hair and not show it to anyone but now you're like, not only can you see my hair, but please touch it. |
| May: Well, no it depends if she's wearing a scarf. There are salons just for people that are wearing the veil and some other salons for just people that aren't. So for me, since I'm not, I don't wear a scarf, it doesn't really matter to me. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Timothy: Okay. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| May: قص [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: To cut. |
| May: قص [slowly - broken down by syllable]. قص [natural native speed] |
| شعر [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Hair. |
| May: شعر [slowly - broken down by syllable]. شعر [natural native speed]. |
| أقصر [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Shorter. |
| May: أقصر [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أقصر [natural native speed] |
| هكذا [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Like this. |
| May: هكذا [slowly - broken down by syllable]. هكذا [natural native speed] |
| Danya: ترك [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: He left. |
| Danya: ترك [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ترك [natural native speed]. |
| May: أطول [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Longer. |
| May: أطول [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أطول [natural native speed]. |
| Danya: أفضل [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Better. |
| Danya: أفضل [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أفضل [natural native speed] |
| May: أحب [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: I love. |
| May: أحب [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أحب [natural native speed] |
| Danya: أكثر مِنْ [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: More. |
| Danya: أكثر slowly - broken down by syllable]. أكثر[natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Timothy: All right. So now, let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Danya: The first word we're going to look at today is قص. |
| Timothy: So when I look at that word, I think of قصير. قص is to cut and when you cut things, it gets short. |
| Danya: Right, but they're actually different. They're not the same. |
| Timothy: You mean they have different roots. |
| Danya: Absolutely. قص is ق ص and means to cut, but قصير is ق ص ر and means short. |
| Timothy: Okay, so is there a verb for to shorten? |
| Danya: يقصر |
| Timothy: Okay, so to shorten is يقصر but to cut is يقص. What's the next word? |
| Danya: شعر and it means hair. |
| Timothy: What kind of hair does شعر refer to? |
| Danya: Well, just like in English, there are different words for the hair on your head, facial hair, pubic hair, animal fur, and so on. But شعر is just the generic word for hair in general. |
| Timothy: Okay. What's the next word? |
| Danya: هكذا which means ""like this."" |
| Timothy: So I've heard this whenever someone is trying to show me how to do something, they're like, ""Hey, do it like this"" or, ""How do you do it, like this, هكذا"" |
| Danya: Right, you can either use it to say, I do it like this or when you're asking a question and making sure you're doing it right. So like this, am I doing it right, so هكذ؟ as in the example of the hair dresser who is asking her client, am I cutting your hair at the right length, so هكذا؟. She's asking her a question. |
| Timothy: Okay. What's the next word? |
| Danya: ترك means he left. |
| May: Now you can use this word by itself هو ترك الغرفة, he left the room. |
| Timothy: And you can use it with an object like she left her purse in the restaurant. |
| May: هي تركت حقيبتها في المطعم. |
| Timothy: Okay. What's the next word? |
| Danya: يحب I like |
| Timothy: I thought this word meant I love. |
| Danya: Well it means both, I like and I love. |
| Timothy: If my girlfriend told me أُحبك, does that mean she's ready to make a commitment, or does it mean she just likes to hang out with me on the weekend? |
| Danya: Well no, she means your relationship is getting quite serious. |
| Timothy: Okay, so if you weren't ready for a serious relationship, is there another word that you could use? |
| Danya: Yeah, you can play around with the word. So you could say I like hanging out with you, I like spending time with you أحب قضاء الوقت معك. I like spending time with you. |
| Timothy: Okay. So you'd still use the same word, but you'd focus more on the activities rather than on the person. |
| Danya: Yeah. In Arabic though, it's pretty understood when people talk, when they mean I love or when they mean I like. Once you speak the language more often, you'll begin to distinguish what's meant when. |
Lesson focus |
| Timothy: All right, let's talk about today's grammar point. Today's grammar point is how to make comparison in Arabic. So when you want to compare how tall two people are for example you use special forms of the adjective tall. So in English you have, Steve is tall. John is taller than Steve and Adam is the tallest So in English the new forms are created by adding suffixes, -er for the comparative and -est for the superlative form. So how do you make comparisons in Arabic? |
| May: Instead of adding sounds to the end of the adjective, Arabic changes the pattern of vowels inside it to make the comparative and superlative forms. |
| Timothy: Okay, let's review the common pattern for adjectives. |
| May: So the root has three letters, between the first and second letter, you're going to put a fatha or an A sound and between the second and third letter, you're going to put a long E sound. |
| Timothy: Okay. Can we get some examples? |
| May: طويل, قصير and جميل. |
| Timothy: Okay, now how do we form the comparative forms? |
| May: So, again, the root has three letters. Before the first letter, you're going to put an A sound and between the second and third letter, you're going to have another A sound. |
| Timothy: Let's hear some examples. |
| May: أطول, أقصر, أجمل. |
| Timothy: Okay, can we get a new example to let the listeners guess the comparative form. |
| May: كثير. |
| Timothy: And the comparative? |
| May: أكثر. |
| Timothy: All right. Can we get another? |
| May: كبير. |
| Timothy: And the comparative? |
| May: أكبر. |
| Timothy: All right. Let's hear one more. |
| May: صغير. |
| Timothy: And the comparative? |
| May: أصغر. |
| Timothy: Now how do we use these new forms? |
| May: Just like in English! |
| Timothy: So, let's hear Steve is tall. |
| May: ستيف أطول. |
| Timothy: Okay. The only difference is Arabic doesn't need the word ""is."" |
| May: Exactly. |
| Timothy: Okay, now John is taller than Steve. |
| May: جون أطول من ستيف. |
| Timothy: So in English, we say taller than, but in Arabic we are going to use من, أطول من. |
| May: Right, prepositions aren't usually 1 to 1 between languages. |
| Timothy: Right, so you just learn the preposition in the particular case that you use it. |
| May: Yes. |
| Timothy: Okay. Now, Adam is the tallest. |
| May: آدم الأطول. |
| Timothy: So instead of tallest, you say the taller? |
| May: Yeah, that's just how we say it. |
Outro |
| Timothy: Okay then. That just about does it for today. |
| Danya: Premium members, use the review track to perfect your pronunciation. |
| Timothy: Available in the premium section of the website, the learning center and through iTunes via the premium feed, the Review Track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so you can repeat the words aloud. |
| Danya: One of the keys to fluency fast! |
| Timothy: Until later. |
| Danya: إلى اللقاء. |
| May: مع السلامة. |
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