Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf

Clive Holes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317305613
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Langues

This new edition of Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf has been revised and updated to make learning this variety of Arabic easier and more enjoyable than ever before.

Specially written by an expert for self-study and classroom use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to spoken Arabic of the Gulf, together with an introduction to reading signs, business cards, advertisements and other realia. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

Each unit presents numerous grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary summaries throughout.

Features new to this edition include:

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• a 'Cultural Point' section in each unit on important aspects of Gulf culture, society and history, with photographs and realia
• a 'Reading Arabic' section in each unit, plus a special appendix on the Arabic script
• comprehensive glossaries, both English-Arabic and Arabic-English, containing all the words in the book
• extra notes on the dialects of Oman.

By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Arabic in a broad range of situations.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

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Unit One

In this unit you will learn about:

• expressions of quantity, e.g. ‘a bottle of milk’, ‘a dozen eggs’
• orders and requests, e.g. ‘Come here!’, ‘Go!’
• how to say ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Be so kind’

Language point

1.1 Expressions of quantity

Look at the way the Arabic words for ‘cup’, ‘glass’, ‘tea’ and ‘coffee’ are combined to form phrases:

glaas	‘glass’	chaay	‘tea’
finjáal	‘cup’ (Arab-style)	gáhwa	‘coffee’
glaas chaay	‘a glass of tea’
finjáal gáhwa	‘a cup of coffee’

Now memorise the following words:

sandawíich	‘sandwich’	burtugáal	‘orange’
dárzan	‘dozen’	láHam	‘meat’
nuSS dárzan	‘half-dozen’	símich/samak	‘fish’
káylo	‘kilo’	Halíib	‘milk’
nuSS káylo	‘half-kilo’	bayD	‘eggs’
búTil	‘bottle’	jíbin	‘cheese’

Exercise 1.1

Translate the following phrases:

1 a half-kilo of meat	4 a kilo of fish
2 a bottle of milk	5 half-a-dozen oranges
3 a dozen eggs	6 a cheese sandwich

In phrases of quantity of this type, no Arabic words for ‘a’ and ‘of are needed. Note that, when the first word of the phrase ends in -a, for example gúT9a ‘piece, chunk’, a final -t is added to it before the second word. This -t is in fact a so-called ‘feminine’ ending, and most Arabic nouns ending in -a have this ‘hidden’ t, which shows up in ‘quantity’ phrases (and other types that we shall meet later). Such words are marked * in the Vocabularies. Here are some examples of phrases involving -t:

gúT9a	‘a piece’	gúT9at láHam	‘a piece of meat’
nítfa	‘a bit’	nítfat xúbuz	‘a bit of bread’
Hábba	‘a grain’	Hábbat 9aysh	‘a grain of rice’

Words like bayD ‘eggs’, and símich ‘fish’ are called ‘collective’ nouns: that is, they denote ‘eggs’ or ‘fish’ in general. If we wish to talk about ‘one egg’ or ‘a fish’, we add the -a feminine ending to form the so-called ‘unit noun’:

bayD	‘eggs’	báyDa	‘an egg’
símich	‘fish’	símicha	‘a fish’
xúbuz	‘bread’	xúbza	‘a loaf

Language point

1.2 Orders and requests

In Arabic, as in English, we can ask people to do things by giving them one-word orders. For example, when addressing male speakers, the following forms are used:

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9aT	‘Give!’
jiib	‘Bring!’