Learn how to explain what's wrong with a product you bought
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hi everyone, and welcome back to ArabicPod101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 21 - Is There a Problem with your Egyptian Phone? I’m Becky. |
| Hany: مرحبا I'm Hany. |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to explain what's wrong with a product you bought. The conversation takes place at an electronics shop. |
| Hany: It's between Tim and a Seller. |
| Becky: The speakers are strangers, so they will use formal Arabic. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| تيم: السلام عليكم. اشتريت هذا الشاحن من هنا منذ حوالي اسبوعين. ولكنه توقف عن العمل أمس. |
| بائع: هل احتفظت بالفاتورة؟ |
| تيم: نعم. تفضل. |
| بائع: دقيقة من فضلك. سوف أحدد المشكلة باستخدام بعض الأجهزة. |
| تيم: خذ وقتك. أنا لست في عجلة من أمري. |
| بائع: أظن أنه عيب في التصنيع. هل وقع على الأرض أو اصطدم بأي شيء؟ |
| تيم: لا والله. كان يعمل بلا مشاكل أول أمس, ولكني لاحظت صباح أمس أن بطارية هاتفي الذكي لم تشحن طوال الليل... |
| بائع: سوف أستبدله لك الآن, فهو لا يزال في فترة الضمان. |
| Becky: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Tim: Hello. I bought this charger here about two weeks ago, but it stopped working yesterday. |
| Seller: Did you keep the receipt? |
| Tim: Yes. Here you go. |
| Seller: One minute, please. I will pinpoint the problem using some devices. |
| Tim: Take your time. I'm not in a hurry. |
| Seller: I think it's a defect in manufacturing. Did it fall on the floor or hit something? |
| Tim: Not at all. It was working perfectly two days ago. But then I noticed yesterday morning that my smartphone's battery didn't charge all night... |
| Seller: I will exchange it now for you. It's still in the warranty period. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Hany, is it true that in Egypt you can easily find counterfeit merchandise? |
| Hany: Yes, that’s true. |
| Becky: What about the quality? |
| Hany: Counterfeit merchandise sold in downtown Cairo by street vendors is extremely cheap and handy indeed, until it breaks, which happens fairly fast. |
| Becky: Then you end up with a broken product with no guarantee. |
| Hany: Exactly, so it's safer to buy original products with guarantees in general. |
| Becky: How do you say “copy” in Arabic? |
| Hany: تقليد |
| Becky: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Hany: شاحن [natural native speed] |
| Becky: charger |
| Hany: شاحن[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: شاحن [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: حوالي [natural native speed] |
| Becky: about |
| Hany: حوالي[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: حوالي [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: احتفَظ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to keep |
| Hany: احتفَظ[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: احتفَظ [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: فاتورة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: receipt |
| Hany: فاتورة[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: فاتورة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: أجهزة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: devices |
| Hany: أجهزة[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: أجهزة [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: عيب [natural native speed] |
| Becky: flaw |
| Hany: عيب[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: عيب [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next we have.. |
| Hany: تصنيع [natural native speed] |
| Becky: manufacturing |
| Hany: تصنيع[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: تصنيع [natural native speed] |
| Becky: And lastly.. |
| Hany: استبدل [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to replace |
| Hany: استبدل[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Hany: استبدل [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.. |
| Hany: خُذ وَقتَك (ḫuḏ waqtak) |
| Becky: meaning "Take your time." |
| Hany: This expression consists of two words — ḫuḏ meaning "to take" and waqtak meaning "your time" |
| Becky: It’s an idiomatic expression and is quite similar to its English counterpart "Take your time" in both structure and usage. Hany, can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. تَمَهَّل و خُذ وَقتَك. (tamahhal wa ḫuḏ waqtak.) |
| Becky: ..which means "Slow down and take your time." Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Hany: في عَجَلَةٍ مِن أَمري (fī ʿaǧalaẗin min ʾamrī) |
| Becky: meaning "in a hurry" |
| Hany: This expression consists of four words – fi meaning "in," 'agalah meaning "a hurry", min meaning "of," and amri meaning "my matter." |
| Becky: If you translate it literally, it doesn't make much sense because it's an idiomatic expression that has to be treated as one unit. |
| Hany: You can use it to express that you are in a hurry and need to get things done fast. |
| Becky: Can you give us an example? |
| Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. تَبدو في عَجَلَةٍ مِن أَمرِك. (tabdū fī ʿaǧalaẗin min ʾamrik.) |
| Becky: .. which means "You look like you're in a hurry." Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Hany: فَترَةُ الضَمان (fatraẗu al-ḍamān) |
| Becky: meaning "warranty period" |
| Hany: This expression consists of two words: fatra meaning "period" and damaan meaning "warranty" |
| Becky: This is the period in which you can fix or replace your product for free. Hany, can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Hany: Sure. For example, you can say.. اِنتَهَت فَترَةُ الضَمان. (intahat fatraẗu al-ḍamān.) |
| Becky: .. which means "The warranty period is over." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Becky: In this lesson, you'll learn how to explain what's wrong with a product you bought. |
| Hany: Mostly, you will learn how to use prepositions in Arabic. |
| Becky: You will also learn the final vowelling of the words following prepositions. Let’s get started. |
| Hany: First of all, a preposition phrase consist of 2 main components: the first is called حرف جر Harf jarr |
| Becky: which is the “preposition” |
| Hany: and the second is called اسم مجرور Ism majruur |
| Becky: which is the “noun modified by the preposition.” We introduce the Arabic names of these parts of speech, not only because this is an intermediate series, but also to make it clear that some Arabic parts of speech don’t have a real equivalent in other languages. Ok, let’s see an example of a preposition in the dialogue. |
| Hany: سَوْفَ أَستَبدِلُهُ لَكَ الآن, فَهُوَ لا يَزالُ في فَترَةِ الضَمان. (sawfa ʾastabdiluhu laka al-ʾān, fahuwa lā yazal-u fī fatraẗi al-ḍamān.) |
| Becky: which means “I will exchange it for you now. It's still in the warranty period.” |
| Hany: Let’s consider fī fatraẗi al-ḍamān. The word fi means “in” and the word fatraẗi al-ḍamān means “the warranty period” |
| Becky: How about the final vowelling? |
| Hany: the word fatrati is in the jarr vowelling state that causes a kasra sign to appear on the last letter of this word. |
| Becky: Ok, let’s look at this in more detail. |
| Hany: First off, each “preposition”, or harf jarr, has its own final vowelling sign |
| Becky: so you have to memorize them the way they are. |
| Hany: Right. Secondly, the “noun modified by the preposition” or ism majruur, on the other hand, is always in the jarr جَرّ vowelling state, which causes the nouns and adjectives to always end in a kasrah or i sound. |
| Becky: As long as they are singular nouns or adjectives, end in a consonant, and are NOT proper nouns. |
| Hany: That’s why, as we already said, in the phrase fī fatraẗi al-ḍamān the “noun modified by the preposition”, which is fatrati meaning “period”, gains a kasrah in the end. |
| Becky: OK. Let’s see another example from the dialogue. |
| Hany: هَل وَقَعَ عَلى الأَرضِ أَوْ اِصطَدَمَ بِأَيِّ شَيْء؟ ( hal waqaʿa ʿalā al-ʾarḍi ʾaw iṣṭadama biʾayyi šayʾ?) |
| Becky: meaning “Did it fall on the floor or hit something?” Also in this case, the “noun modified by the preposition” follows the rules we already mentioned. |
| Hany: Right. In the phrase ʿalā al-ʾarḍi, meaning “on the floor,” the “preposition” is ʿalā meaning “on,” while the “noun modified by the preposition” is al-ʾarḍi , meaning “the floor,” and it gains a jarr state with a kasrah final vowelling sign i. |
| Becky: Ok, what are the most commonly used prepositions in Arabic? |
| Hany:Here are some. First مِن min |
| Becky: which means “from” |
| Hany: في fi |
| Becky: which means “in” |
| Hany: and لِ li |
| Becky: which means “to,” “towards.” Ok, in order to get used to these, let’s see other examples of sets of “prepositions” and “nouns modified by the prepositions” from the dialogue |
| Hany: اِشتَرَيْتُ هَذا الشاحِن مِن هُنا مُنذُ حَوْالَي اُسبوعَيْن. و لَكِنَّهُ تَوَقَّفَ عَن العَمَلِ أَمس. (ištaraytu haḏā al-šāḥin min hunā munḏu ḥawal-aī āusbūʿayn. wa lakinnahu tawaqqafa ʿan al-ʿamali ʾams.) |
| Becky: meaning “I bought this charger here about 2 weeks ago, but it stopped working yesterday.” |
| Hany: In this sentence we can find the preposition in the phrase ʿan al-ʿamali. ʿan is the preposition itself meaning “from” and al-ʿamali is the “noun modified by the preposition” meaning “work.” |
| Becky: so literally it would be “from working” |
| Hany: Right, another example is in the sentence أَنا لَستُ في عَجَلَةٍ مِن أَمري. (ʾanā lastu fī ʿaǧalaẗin min ʾamrī.) |
| Becky: meaning “I'm not in a hurry.” |
| Hany: The phrase fī ʿaǧalaẗin means “in a hurry.” Fī is the preposition itself meaning “in” and the “noun modified by the preposition” is ʿaǧalaẗin meaning “a hurry,” which gains a jarr vowelling state with a kasrah final vowelling sign i. |
| Becky: There is one more preposition set in the sentence, right? |
| Hany: Right, though it’s not translated in English, we also have min ʾamrī. |
| Becky: which literally means “from my matters” |
| Hany: min means “from” and ʾamrī “means my matters” |
| Becky: Now that we have learned how to form a prepositional phrase, or in Arabic… |
| Hany: harf jar-ism majruur phrase |
| Becky: ...we can easily use prepositions to make the relationship between parts of a sentence clearer. Listeners, you might have noticed that there’s a difference between the usage and meaning of prepositions in Arabic and in English. |
| Hany: Prepositions like ‘an meaning “about” or “from,” ka meaning “like,” and bi meaning “by,” “with,” or “using,” can be translated to a different part of speech in English. |
| Becky: Only lots of practice can make it feel natural, so practice is key. Let’s give some examples of prepositions that translate to other parts of speech in English: |
| Hany:كَتَبتُ مَقالَةً عَن السِيْاحَةِ في مِصر. (katabtu maqalaẗan ʿan al-siyāḥaẗi fī miṣr. ) |
| Becky: “I wrote an article about tourism in Egypt.” |
| Hany: قَفَزَ الطِفلُ كَالأَرنَب. (qafaza al-ṭiflu kal-ʾarnab. ) |
| Becky: “The baby jumped like a rabbit.” |
Outro |
| Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Hany: شكرا |
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