LESSON NOTES

Absolute Beginner S1 #6
The Story of My Life in Arabic

CONTENTS
2
2
3
4
5
6
7
7
8

Arabic
Vowelled Arabic
Romanization
English
Vocabulary
Sample Sentences
Vocabulary Phrase Usage
Grammar
Cultural Insight

#
COPYRIGHT 2013 INNOVATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ARABIC
.1

! !

.2

! . !

.3

.4

.5

. .

.6

.7

.8

.9

?Hello Julia! How are you

.10

.11

.12

.
!

VOWELLED ARABIC

CONT'D OVER
2

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

ARABI CPOD101.COM

.1

! !

.2

!
! .

.3

.4

.5

. .

.6

.7

.8

.9

?Hello Julia! How are you

.10

.11

.12

.
!

ROMANIZATION
?h, h hiya ly! maraban ly! kayfa anti

MAH:

1.

CONT'D OVER
3

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

ARABI CPOD101.COM

2.

LY:

ahlan mah! an biayr ,al-amdu lilh. maraban muammad, d

mld sad!

3.

MUAMMAD:

ukran laki.

4.

LY:

ahauuli adiquk?

5.

MUAMMAD:

naam. anti tarifna mah, wa ha amad.

6.

AMAD:

furah sadah.

7.

LY:

furah sadah.

8.

MUAMMAD:

wa ha al-id.

9.

AL-ID:

Hello Julia! How are you?

10.

LY:

anta tarif al-inlziyyah! kayfa taallamta al-inlziyyah?

11.

AL-ID:

darastu al-inlziyyah f al-miah wa amiltu f dinfar libai alwaqt, wa sfartu ayan il uustural-y.

12.

LY:

aml!

ENGLISH
1.

MAHA:

Ah, there is Julia! Hey Julia! How are you?

2.

JULIA:

Hey Maha! I am fine, thanks to God. ... Hello Mohammed, happy

birthday!

CONT'D OVER
ARABI CPOD101.COM

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

3.

MOHAMMED:

Thank you!

4.

JULIA:

Are these your friends?

5.

MOHAMMED:

Yes. You know Maha. This is Khalid...

6.

KHALID:

Nice to meet you.

7.

JULIA:

Nice to meet you.

8.

MOHAMMED:

... and that is Ahmed.

9.

KHALID:

(in English Hello Julia! How are you?)

10.

JULIA:

Oh, you know English! How did you learn English?

11.

KHALID:

I studied English at university and I worked in Denver for a bit. I

have also traveled to Australia.

12.

JULIA:

Nice!

VOCABULARY
A r abic

R omanization

English

C lass

taallama

learn

verb

daras

study

verb

hauli

these

determiner

adiq

friends

noun

ARABI CPOD101.COM

Ge nde r

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

haa

here, this

adverb

English

al-inlziyyah

(language)

noun

amila

to work

noun

li

for

preposition

sfar

travel

verb

ba

some

adjective

waqt

time

noun

ayan

too, also

adverb

feminine

masculine

SAMPLE SENTENCES

al-walad yataallam as-saksfn

al-alibu yadrus.

The boy learns the saxophone.

The student is studying.

hauli hum wal-idy.

h hum adiq!

These are my parents.

Here are my friends!

h hum adiq!

takallam al-inlziyyah

Here are my friends!

To speak English

almuwaafn amil bilmaktab

katabtu liumm

The employees worked at the office.

I wrote to my mother.

ARABI CPOD101.COM

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

sfartu il waan

ba al-waqt

I travelled to my home country

Some time

laysa ladayya waqtun

an ayan.

I don't have time

Me too.

an si ayan

I'm a tourist too.

VOCABULARY PHRASE USAGE

1. In the previous lesson, we said that you could start a yes/no question with "hal". Instead of
"hal", you can also start it with a simple "'a".
2. One-syllable words like "wa" (and), "li" (for) or "bi" (with) are combined with the next word in
Arabic writing, so don't be surprised if you hear it in spoken Arabic, too. For example, you're
much more likely to hear "liSadiiqii" (for my friend) rather than a clear-cut "li Sadiiqii".

GRAMMAR
The focus of this lesson is the regular past tense - part 1
"kayfa taallamt al'ingliiziyya?"
"How did you learn English?"

Arabic does not have an infinitive, a form like "to be" or "to do". Instead, what you'll see in
dictionaries is the equivalent of "he was" or "he did" - in the past tense! The past tense is the
most regular tense in Arabic and all other forms are derived from it. Let's look at the singular
forms today, and we'll cover the rest next time.

ARABI CPOD101.COM

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C

The form you'll see in a dictionary - or in our vocabulary list - might be( darasa). We give
this as "to learn", but really it means "he learned". This is the base form. It usually consists of
three consonants, each separated by an -a sound. The final -a is not spoken in informal
speech, so it's just "daras".
daras-t(u) = I learned
daras-t(a) = you learned (talking to a man)
daras-ti = you learned (talking to a woman)
daras-(a) = he learned
daras-at = she learned
The vowels in parenthesis are usually left out in informal speech. So in informal speech, "I
learned" and "you learned" are both "daras-t", except when you're talking to a woman, then it's
"daras-ti". You'll find that Arabic often has a different form for when you're talking to a woman,
but these forms are slowly becoming less common.
The other verbs in the vocabulary list behave just like "darasa". In fact, all verbs get the same
endings in the past tense; Arabic is easier than Spanish in that regard.

CULTURAL INSIGHT
Language Knowledge in the Arab World
Most Arabs study English at school these days, though French also has a big tradition in
North Africa, particularly Algeria. Most educated people in North Africa speak French. Other
languages are less common. One might think that Arabs would be interested in learning other
"Muslim" languages like Turkish, Farsi or Indonesian, but that is actually not the case.
Note also that all Arabs have to learn Modern Standard Arabic at school, because the
regional dialects can be quite far from that, like completely different languages.

ARABI CPOD101.COM

ABS OLUT E BEGI NNER S 1 #6 - T HE S T ORY OF MY LI FE I N ARABI C