Learn how to ask your neighbors where they are from
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Timothy: Hi, my name is Timothy and I’m joined here by May. |
| May: مرحباً, Hello. |
| Timothy: And Danya. |
| Danya: أهلاً. Hi. Hello, Everyone! And welcome back to ArabicPod101. |
| Timothy: With us, you’ll learn how to speak Arabic like a native. |
| May: We also provide you with cultural insights and tips you won’t find in a textbook. |
| Timothy: Last time, we looked at greetings and introductions. |
| May: What’s your name? |
| Danya: My name is Danya. |
| May: ما اسمكِ؟ |
| Danya: اسمي دانيا. |
| Timothy: During the taxi ride from the airport, we started talking. |
| May: Danya and I are talking about where I’m from. |
| Timothy: The politeness level will be formal, and we’ll focus on yes-no questions. Take your studies to the next level by stopping by the learning center at ArabicPod101.com. Let’s get into today’s conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| دانية من أين أنتِ؟ |
| مي أنا من الأردن. |
| دانية هل أنتِ من الزرقاء؟ |
| مي لا، أنا لستُ من الزرقاء. أنا من عمّان. |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. |
| دانية من أين أنتِ؟ |
| Timothy: Where are you from? |
| مي أنا من الأردن. |
| Timothy: I'm from Jordan. |
| دانية هل أنتِ من الزرقاء؟ |
| Timothy: Are you from Az-Zarqa? |
| مي لا، أنا لستُ من الزرقاء. أنا من عمّان. |
| Timothy: No, I am not from Az-Zarqa. I'm from Amman. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Timothy: So May, I know you were in Amman just a couple of months ago. Why did you go to Amman a couple of months ago? |
| May: Well, my brother was getting married. |
| Timothy: Ah,مبروك. Congratulations! |
| May: Thank you. |
| Timothy: I mean it’s for him. |
| May: Yeah. |
| Timothy: And I was wondering what sort of things what were you doing there? |
| May: I had a great time in Amman. The weather was perfect, so we spent a few days at one of the fantastic resorts at the Dead Sea and we visited the Petra. |
| Timothy: Oh, Petra. |
| May: Yeah. |
| Timothy: That’s like one of the seven wonders, right? One that might… |
| May: It became recently. |
| Timothy: Yeah, just like last year we have new seven wonders of the world. |
| May: Yes, it’s one of them. |
| Timothy: And Petra is one of them? |
| Danya: Petra is basically a very ancient city where the whole city is engraved in the mountains… |
| Timothy: Really? |
| Danya: …and done very beautifully. Architecturally, it’s just beautiful. |
| Timothy: So what kind of architecture? Like, what does it look like? |
| May: The city, it’s basically houses engraved in the mountain. And their house, they’re going to have Athenians houses where they used to have concerts and it called The Rose City… |
| Timothy: The Rose City. |
| May: ….because the rocks are rosy colored. |
| Timothy: Okay. So is that right in Amman? |
| May: No, it’s like three to four hours away from the capital Amman. |
| Danya: By car? |
| Timothy: By car? |
| May: Yeah, by car driving. Yeah. |
| Timothy: Okay. So if you go to visit Amman, then you take a nice car ride. Would taxis drive out that far? |
| Danya: You can rent a car. |
| Timothy: Rent a car? Okay. |
| May: Yeah. Or you could go with that group like tourists. |
| Timothy: So check out the Rose City and all that beautiful architecture. |
| May: Right. And you can also go out to the Dead Sea. It’s about half hour drive by car. |
| Timothy: From Amman? |
| May: Right, the capital. And they’ve got beautiful resorts out there, spas, and hotels. |
| Timothy: Yeah. Sounds like Amman and Jordan in general is a really nice place to go and visit. |
| May: Yeah. There are a lot of attractions, a lot of ancient ruins also you can visit. |
| Timothy: How about modern day things? |
| May: Yeah. It’s more located in that capital, the actual city. |
| Timothy: So in Amman, there’s a lot of… |
| May: The modern life. And then the suburb is where you find all these ancient ruins and the Petra and Dead Sea. |
| Timothy: That’s really interesting. I’d like to go. All right. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Timothy: Now, we go take a look at the vocabulary and phrases for his lesson. First word… |
| Danya: لا [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: No. |
| Danya: لا [slowly - broken down by syllable]. لا [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: Next word. |
| Danya: نعم [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: Yes. |
| Danya: نعم [slowly - broken down by syllable]. نعم [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: Next word… |
| Danya: أنتِ [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: You (referring to a woman.) |
| Danya: أنت [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أنت [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: Next word. |
| Danya: أنتَ [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: You (referring to man). |
| Danya: أنت [slowly - broken down by syllable]. أنت [natural native speed]. |
| Danya: أنا |
| Timothy: I |
| Danya: أنا. |
| Timothy: Next word. |
| Danya: لستُ [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: I am not |
| Danya: لستُ [slowly - broken down by syllable]. لستُ [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: Next word. |
| Danya: لستَ [natural native speed] |
| Timothy: You are not (to a man). |
| Danya: لستَ [slowly - broken down by syllable]. لستَ [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: Next word. |
| Danya: لستِ [natural native speed]. |
| Timothy: You are not (when talking to a woman). |
| Danya: لستِ [slowly - broken down by syllable]. لستِ [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Timothy: Let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words and phrases. The first word we will look at is أين. Can you give us an example sentence, please? |
| Danya: أين الحمام؟ |
| Timothy: “Where is the bathroom?” Being able to ask أين is very useful for meeting your needs. Let’s say you’ve lost your keys. You could ask… |
| Danya: أين مفاتيحي؟ |
| Timothy: “Where are my keys?” Or let’s say you’re looking for a restaurant. Ask the clerk at your hotel… |
| Danya: أين المطعم؟ |
| Timothy: “Where is the restaurant?” The next vocabulary word is من. How about an example with من? |
| Danya: المطعم قريب من هنا؟ |
| Timothy: “The restaurant is close to here.”من” is a useful preposition that indicates origin or the origin of movement. |
| Danya: من أين هو؟ |
| Timothy: “Where is he from?” |
| Danya: سافرت من أمريكا إلى الأردن. |
| Timothy: “I traveled from America to Jordan.” |
Lesson focus |
| Timothy: Let’s have a more thorough look at the grammar used in this lesson. First, we’ll look at subject pronouns. Just like English, Arabic has different words for I, he, and she. But unlike English, Arabic has two words for “you”, depending on whether “you” refers to a man or to a woman. Let’s go back to where this appeared in the conversation. Can you repeat that sentence? |
| May: من أين أنتِ؟ |
| Timothy: “Where are you from?” Since May is a woman, the speaker used أنتِ to refer to her. How would you ask a man where he is from? |
| May: من أين أنتَ؟ |
| Timothy: “Where are you from?” أنا من أوكلاهوما. “I’m from Oklahoma.” Again, we see that a gender appropriate pronounce was used – [أنتَ] for a man, [أنتِ] for a woman. The next grammar point is asking a yes-no question. Asking a yes-no question in Arabic is really easy. All you have to do is take هل on the front of your sentence. Let’s go back to where this appeared in the conversation. Can you repeat that sentence? |
| May: هل أنتِ من الزرقاء؟ |
| Timothy: “Are you from Az- Zarqa?” Here, we started with the sentence… |
| May: أنتِ من الزرقاء؟ |
| Timothy: “You are from Az-Zarqa.” And added “how” to the beginning to make it a question. |
| May: هل أنتِ من الزرقاء؟ |
| Timothy: Can we have another example sentence? |
| May: هل هو أمريكي؟ |
| Timothy: “Is he American?” Again, we started with a positive statement…. |
| May: هو أمريكي. |
| Timothy: “He is American,” and added “how” to the beginning to make it a question. |
| May: هل هو أمريكي؟ |
| Timothy: “Is he American?” May, I know that in many languages, you can ask a question just by using a question intonation. |
| May: Yes. We do the same thing when speaking casually, but you have to use “how” when speaking in modern standard Arabic. |
| Timothy: Okay. Can we get an example of that question intonation? |
| May: هو أمريكي؟ |
| Timothy: The final grammar point is negating a statement. In statements like “I’m American,” Eric doesn’t use a word for “an”, but if we look at the sentence “I am not American,” we see that Arabic does use the word for “am not.” Let’s go back to where this appeared in the conversation. Can we repeat that sentence? |
| May: أنا لستُ من الزرقاء |
| Timothy: “I am not from Az-Zarqa.” The sentence أنا من الزرقاء is negated with أنا لستُ من الزرقاء. That sounds so hard, is it? |
| May: No, it’s pretty easy, but there’s more to it than that. |
| Timothy: Yes. Last two takes different forms depending on who is not. Can you give us some examples? |
| May: أنتِ لستِ قبيحة. |
| Timothy: “You are not ugly,” when talking to a woman. |
| May: أنتَ لستَ مستعد. |
| Timothy: “You are not ready,” when talking to a man. |
| May: هو ليس تعبان. |
| Timothy: “He is not tired.” |
| May: هي ليست عطشانة. |
| Timothy: “She is not thirsty.” |
Outro |
| Timothy: This will conclude today’s lesson. Be sure to check out the vocabulary list with audio in the learning center at ArabicPod101.com. Also, ask us a question in the forum or leave us a comment. See you soon! |
| May: Bye. |
| Timothy: Until next time. |
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