Thanks Forest for bring up the topic of Audio with these words we are learning.
There are 3 answers to that question:
1) If you learn the alphabet really well from the October 2010 files on arabicforpoets.blogspot.com you'll find that the rules of pronunciation are totally consistent and regular in Arabic, like Spanish, but not like English--so in Arabic you can successfully predict how every word should be pronounced. Actually, it's even easier than Spanish if you study up on Moras theory, which basically gives you a one-rule formula to find the accent in every Arabic word.
2) If you want to hear the computer apply the rules of Arabic pronunciation to a word for perfect synthetic pronunciation go to google translate and paste in the word. They have an audio play button. By opening this blog and Google translate side by side on your screen in two different windows you could copy and paste any word you want to hear quickly and efficiently. After you type in or paste in a word, click the little blue "Listen" button under the text box. Here's the link:
http://translate.google.com/#ar|en|
3) Senda might make some youtube videos of the words for us later. When (and if) she does (i.e. if we get enough feedback indicating that people are actually using these words), then I will post links to those videos as well.
Enjoy!
Sky
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Senda's 15 Sunday Arabic Words
Senda asked me to make her a smoothie, which, interestingly, she refers to in Arabic by a simpler word that is also used for describing the liquid we get from squeezing oranges or apples on their own. Senda said simply:
(Mnemonic) Imagine an owl--ourNayn icon--eats a mouse that fell in a bucket of hot sauce. His ass is seared by the dark hot runs that come out of him after that. Next time he sees a mouse covered in hot sauce, he will say, "Ah, seers of the future know what lies ahead for fools who eat such mice!"
Later, Senda and I went to the hiking trails behind Fort Ord for a walk. As we went, Senda narrated the following:
(Mnemonic #2) Do you every wonder WHY we get so much of our oil to drive with from the saharas of the world--Sahara means desert in Arabic by the way. Maybe we should huff and puff less to get that oil from the desert and ask why more instead to find a better fuel for driving our pink (feminine) sayaARa(h). It sounds like Sahara, but replace the "H" with "Y."
(Mnemonic #3) Imagine the smell of laying fresh black Tar down to pave a new TaRiyQ. Doesn't the smell reek? Now you've got your word for what we pave to drive on in Arabic. To remember it is a Dark "Q" and not a "k," imagine driving over a Cat like our Mnemonic Alphabet in the October section of arabicforpoets.blogspot.com taught us to associate with the letter "Q." Squished into a hot Tar spot filling in a pot hole in the TaRiyQ, that would reek too on a hot summer day, wouldn't it?
(Mnemonic #4) One of the great systems that connects our country is the interstate highway system. To remember the word for the political regions like California and Nevada what we are connecting, think how "we lay ya" down highways to get from one wilayyah to the other wilayyah. To remember the te-marbutah ending, note that political regions are referred to in the feminine in both English and Arabic--that should be intuitive.
When we got to our destination and started our walk up the trail behind Fort Ord, we say lots of beautiful plants. Senda narrated our walk with contextually clear Arabic insertions as follows:
(Mnemonic # 5) Looking at the branches full of hanging Spanish moss that looked like string cheeze, I imagined taking a "cheese shearer" to harvest string cheese by climbing up the trucks of these plants that kind of sounds like "cheese shearer" with the word shezherah (a.k.a. &ajaRa{h}). There is no "ch" in Arabic, so I easily recognize that as a clue for the first sh (&), and then the "z" sound before the next "sh" in shearer reminds me to vocalize it making a "zh" or French-like "J" sound. Hey, if you are really going to use mnemonics hard core, you've got to develop systematic conventions and clues for yourself. If you want to know more about my entire set of mnemonic conventions for Arabic, email me. So far it seems like plants in general are feminine, so we also add the te-marbutah here.
(Mnemonic #6) Hearing this word, it made me wonder if the name Sarah originally meant the same thing in Hebrew. Maybe not, but following that train of free association I moved East in my mind to Persian and imagined an ancient Zoroastrian version of Sarah crossing the desert (SaHara) in light white robes to remind me of the word "zahra(h)" for these blooming little objects with colorful peddles. If that doesn't work for you imagine Zorro riding into the Sahara to save Sarah who is lost and wandering. When he finds her he gives her water and a bouquet.
(Mnemonic #7) Since Senda was complaining that the insects were gobbling her up as we walked through the arboreal environment it's easy to remember the word GaAba for that tree-filled terrain.
When we got back out from trails and into the open entering a housing development, we saw some brightly colored plastic netting around a work project on the side walk next to the place where people pick up their mail. Senda contextualized the following words in this visual:
(#8) The color of that plastic has a name that is also used for a fruit in English. This is virtually the same case in Arabic--we use the word for the color and the citrus fruit, but we change the last vowel.
(#8a-b) The color is called بُرْتَقَاْلِ , but the fruit is called بُرْتَقَاْلَ .
(#9) The mailman put the mail in the mail--fill in the blank. We also sent a صُنْدُوْقْ of presents to Mariem. (Transliterated SunduUQ)
(#10) "Look," she said, "there is a little male طِفُلْ and a little female -- طِفْلَة they are the same age as our daughter Mariem."
(Mnemonic #8) I imagine that a farmer decides to rip up some young cauliflower plants to plant some citrus fruit instead, and when he does, he wraps up the aborted cauliflower in the hazard colored plastic net. "Abort a cauliflower," sound like buRtaQaAli -- and we could imagine a stray cat messing around in the refuse of these ripped up plants to remember the "Q" instead of "k" sound from our alphabet. Then imagine the farmer hangs up the phone on anyone who calls him in the future who isn't asking for his new citrus fruit. He habit now is to "abort a call'a" if they aren't calling for his new citrus fruit.
(Mnemonic #9) Imagine a duck wearing a big black sun emblem on a necklace hiding in the mail*** from a black cat on top of the mail*** trying to get him. That reminds us of SunduUQ.
(Mnemonic #10) Imagine that little girl falls down, but gets right back up without crying because she's so tough like Teflon. The little boy then falls down too, but sniffles a bit before getting back up because he isn't as tough. Together they are Tiflon -- Tiful and Tiflah.
Just as we were getting back to our car at the end of our walk we saw one animal people keep as a pet chase another animal that people also keep as a pet up a shajaRa. Senda narrated the Arabic words pictured in this situation as follows:
(Mnemonic #11) Imagine the kelb is tied up with a piece of kelp. I see one strand coming from the bulb of the kelp tied to his neck, and the other strand tied to a stake in the ground. Imagine the strand tied to the stake in the ground breaks and the kelb goes racing off with the kelp bulb bouncing along on the ground behind him because it is still connect by a strand to his collar.
(Mnemonic #12) Wouldn't it even make more sense to call the mother of kittens in English a Qit than the other word we call this animal that changes the vowel sound? Now imagine it's a black Qit to be sure to remember it's the dark "Q" sound and not the light "k" sound in Arabic.
(Mnemonic #13) The organ in our chest beats hard like a club against our flesh went we get scared. It is also dark red like an apple to remind us of the right Dark consonant and the right a-like vowel to spell the word with. Put it all together and you get Qalb.
When we got back into our (imagine it pink) sayyarah and started to drive back home, Senda asked if we could stop on the way back home for two things.
(Mnemonic #14) The object that you weight yourself one tells you your Misery Number -- your miyzaAn. Here I remember to replace the "R" in Misery with the "N" in number because I know I'm usually looking for 3 primary root consonants in the vast majority of Arabic words. I also remember to add long vowels to draw out the word in miserable complaining slow talk.
(Mnemonic #15) Please. It's a pure cognate.
We got both of those things and then when we got back home we counted up all these words that Senda had taught me. Great job Senda! Fifteen words in one day through contextualization is our new record.
(#1) "Will you make me a عَصِيْرْ with blueberries and bananas in the blender?"
(#1b) Sometimes I don't make her one of these drinks because it is عَسِيْرْ, (the opposite of easy).
(Mnemonic) Imagine an owl--our
Later, Senda and I went to the hiking trails behind Fort Ord for a walk. As we went, Senda narrated the following:
(#2) We are driving in our سَيَاْرَة, which happens to be a Honda Civic.
(#3) We are driving our Honda Civic down the طَرِيْقْ to get to Fort Ord.
(#4) Because we live in a military town, we see different license plates from every وِلَاْيَّة in the country.
(Mnemonic #2) Do you every wonder WHY we get so much of our oil to drive with from the saharas of the world--Sahara means desert in Arabic by the way. Maybe we should huff and puff less to get that oil from the desert and ask why more instead to find a better fuel for driving our pink (feminine) sayaARa(h). It sounds like Sahara, but replace the "H" with "Y."
(Mnemonic #3) Imagine the smell of laying fresh black Tar down to pave a new TaRiyQ. Doesn't the smell reek? Now you've got your word for what we pave to drive on in Arabic. To remember it is a Dark "Q" and not a "k," imagine driving over a Cat like our Mnemonic Alphabet in the October section of arabicforpoets.blogspot.com taught us to associate with the letter "Q." Squished into a hot Tar spot filling in a pot hole in the TaRiyQ, that would reek too on a hot summer day, wouldn't it?
(Mnemonic #4) One of the great systems that connects our country is the interstate highway system. To remember the word for the political regions like California and Nevada what we are connecting, think how "we lay ya" down highways to get from one wilayyah to the other wilayyah. To remember the te-marbutah ending, note that political regions are referred to in the feminine in both English and Arabic--that should be intuitive.
When we got to our destination and started our walk up the trail behind Fort Ord, we say lots of beautiful plants. Senda narrated our walk with contextually clear Arabic insertions as follows:
(#5) "Look at the stringy moss hanging down from the branches of that big green شَجَرَة.
(#6) "Also, isn't little blooming yellow and purple little زَهْرَة by the side of the road beautiful?
Later, I took Senda off the main path through narrower trails through the thick foliage. She didn't like that and started complaining--to paraphrase her hinting at our next word, she said:
(#7) "I don't like walking through this dense arboreal environment of the غَاْبَة with all these insects!"
(Mnemonic # 5) Looking at the branches full of hanging Spanish moss that looked like string cheeze, I imagined taking a "cheese shearer" to harvest string cheese by climbing up the trucks of these plants that kind of sounds like "cheese shearer" with the word shezherah (a.k.a. &ajaRa{h}). There is no "ch" in Arabic, so I easily recognize that as a clue for the first sh (&), and then the "z" sound before the next "sh" in shearer reminds me to vocalize it making a "zh" or French-like "J" sound. Hey, if you are really going to use mnemonics hard core, you've got to develop systematic conventions and clues for yourself. If you want to know more about my entire set of mnemonic conventions for Arabic, email me. So far it seems like plants in general are feminine, so we also add the te-marbutah here.
(Mnemonic #6) Hearing this word, it made me wonder if the name Sarah originally meant the same thing in Hebrew. Maybe not, but following that train of free association I moved East in my mind to Persian and imagined an ancient Zoroastrian version of Sarah crossing the desert (SaHara) in light white robes to remind me of the word "zahra(h)" for these blooming little objects with colorful peddles. If that doesn't work for you imagine Zorro riding into the Sahara to save Sarah who is lost and wandering. When he finds her he gives her water and a bouquet.
(Mnemonic #7) Since Senda was complaining that the insects were gobbling her up as we walked through the arboreal environment it's easy to remember the word GaAba for that tree-filled terrain.
When we got back out from trails and into the open entering a housing development, we saw some brightly colored plastic netting around a work project on the side walk next to the place where people pick up their mail. Senda contextualized the following words in this visual:
(#8) The color of that plastic has a name that is also used for a fruit in English. This is virtually the same case in Arabic--we use the word for the color and the citrus fruit, but we change the last vowel.
(#9) The mailman put the mail in the mail--fill in the blank. We also sent a صُنْدُوْقْ of presents to Mariem. (Transliterated SunduUQ)
Then Senda saw little male and female humans playing down the street at on a playground.
(#10) "Look," she said, "there is a little male طِفُلْ and a little female -- طِفْلَة they are the same age as our daughter Mariem."
(Mnemonic #8) I imagine that a farmer decides to rip up some young cauliflower plants to plant some citrus fruit instead, and when he does, he wraps up the aborted cauliflower in the hazard colored plastic net. "Abort a cauliflower," sound like buRtaQaAli -- and we could imagine a stray cat messing around in the refuse of these ripped up plants to remember the "Q" instead of "k" sound from our alphabet. Then imagine the farmer hangs up the phone on anyone who calls him in the future who isn't asking for his new citrus fruit. He habit now is to "abort a call'a" if they aren't calling for his new citrus fruit.
(Mnemonic #9) Imagine a duck wearing a big black sun emblem on a necklace hiding in the mail*** from a black cat on top of the mail*** trying to get him. That reminds us of SunduUQ.
(Mnemonic #10) Imagine that little girl falls down, but gets right back up without crying because she's so tough like Teflon. The little boy then falls down too, but sniffles a bit before getting back up because he isn't as tough. Together they are Tiflon -- Tiful and Tiflah.
Just as we were getting back to our car at the end of our walk we saw one animal people keep as a pet chase another animal that people also keep as a pet up a shajaRa. Senda narrated the Arabic words pictured in this situation as follows:
(#11) The barking animal chasing the other animal is called a كِلْبْ.
(#12) The frightened black animal who gives birth to kittens is called a قِطْ.
(#13) For sure the قِلْبْ inside of the Qit's chest is beating fast while she runs from the كِلْبْ.
(Mnemonic #11) Imagine the kelb is tied up with a piece of kelp. I see one strand coming from the bulb of the kelp tied to his neck, and the other strand tied to a stake in the ground. Imagine the strand tied to the stake in the ground breaks and the kelb goes racing off with the kelp bulb bouncing along on the ground behind him because it is still connect by a strand to his collar.
(Mnemonic #12) Wouldn't it even make more sense to call the mother of kittens in English a Qit than the other word we call this animal that changes the vowel sound? Now imagine it's a black Qit to be sure to remember it's the dark "Q" sound and not the light "k" sound in Arabic.
(Mnemonic #13) The organ in our chest beats hard like a club against our flesh went we get scared. It is also dark red like an apple to remind us of the right Dark consonant and the right a-like vowel to spell the word with. Put it all together and you get Qalb.
When we got back into our (imagine it pink) sayyarah and started to drive back home, Senda asked if we could stop on the way back home for two things.
(#14) Can we go by a مِيزَانْ to stand on and see how much we weigh now?
(#15) And after that can we get a فِيْلْمْ to watch? (Yes, it's really "film" in Modern Standard Arabic.)
(Mnemonic #14) The object that you weight yourself one tells you your Misery Number -- your miyzaAn. Here I remember to replace the "R" in Misery with the "N" in number because I know I'm usually looking for 3 primary root consonants in the vast majority of Arabic words. I also remember to add long vowels to draw out the word in miserable complaining slow talk.
(Mnemonic #15) Please. It's a pure cognate.
We got both of those things and then when we got back home we counted up all these words that Senda had taught me. Great job Senda! Fifteen words in one day through contextualization is our new record.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Senda's FIVE!!! points from a Mall Walk
I took Senda for an evening walk through the cobblestone walkway by the closed stores of the mall this evening after nine, and she taught me the following 5 words in perfect Krashen contextualization of i + 1:
"Look, Senda said, Macy's is a مَحَلْ, the Apple مَحَلْ is a مَحَلْ, but also we live in a مَحَلْ."
(Mnemonic: Think Taj Mahal. Imagine them selling souvenirs there now. It was a fancy Mahal once upon a time in the general sense of the word, but now it is specifically the more common commercial sense of the word Mahal. I wonder if the king who built the Mahal new it would become a commercial Mahal. I wonder if that is where we get the word Mall from in English.)
At the end of the cobblestone walkway Senda sat down on a single person seat with four legs and arm rests.
"I'm sitting down on a كُرْسِيّ, she said."
(Mnemonic: This word sounds a lot like a car seat for a baby, or like the word curtsy. I image Senda makes a curtsy with her long green skirt before she sits down in the chair, but then I imagine that the chair gets narrow and has lots of straps dangling around it like a car seat, and when she sits in it she gets stuck, and I have to help pull her out. Curtsy divided by Car seat = Cursiyy because the "t's" cancel out. Alternatively, you could imagine a chair carved with beautiful Arabic cursive and then drop the "v" that doesn't exist in Arabic.)
"Look," Senda then continued,
"This كُرْسِيّ and the others with it are in front of a طَاوِلَة that we could eat on or work on."
(Mnemonic: To remember it starting with a Dark "T," I imagine a huge Tarantula jump on the table. Senda screams and dives under the table. The tarantula starts ripping out the middle of the table until there is a whole in the middle that looks like a wheel. Then before he jumps through the hole, a security guard I alerted zaps him with a Taser and he freezes into a lifeless statue onto top of the wheel that is over terrified Senda. Reading the image top to bottom in the freeze frame, I see in my mind's eye (1) Taa (2) wi L (3) a {almost or "ah" screaming} (4) Senda, feminine representation at the end for te-marbuta.)
After teaching me those words Senda felt that uncomfortable feeling on your skin that makes you scratch.
"I'm scratching," she explained, "because I have an حُكَاكْ."
(Mnemonic: Imagine I take Senda into a cafe where the greeen Who's from Whoville in Dr. Seuss' book are serving Who Cake, which Senda takes one bit of and then starts to itch all over from a terrible alergic reaction. She scratches and scratches, but it won't go away until I get her out of the Who Cake Cafe into the cool refreshing night air.)
As we are walking out of the other end of the mall headed back home, we see two lean young men in designer cloths standing exceptionally close to each other while gazing into a Potter Barn store window at all the decorative household supplies in the display. The are pointing at the items in the window and talking excitedly to each other about them in a very feminine manner.
Senda say, I wonder if they are مِثْلِيْنْ like the two husbands we knew in Oakland.
(Mnemonic: These two guys seemed exaggeratedly stereotypical, and made me think there is a myth of lean homosexuals wearing designer cloths and acting feminine, but really, a lot of the homosexuals we knew in Oakland were neither lean nor girly at all. But MYTH LEAN sounds exactly like the word for two homosexuals in Arabic, so it's a good Mnemonic fit.)
"Look, Senda said, Macy's is a مَحَلْ, the Apple مَحَلْ is a مَحَلْ, but also we live in a مَحَلْ."
(Mnemonic: Think Taj Mahal. Imagine them selling souvenirs there now. It was a fancy Mahal once upon a time in the general sense of the word, but now it is specifically the more common commercial sense of the word Mahal. I wonder if the king who built the Mahal new it would become a commercial Mahal. I wonder if that is where we get the word Mall from in English.)
At the end of the cobblestone walkway Senda sat down on a single person seat with four legs and arm rests.
"I'm sitting down on a كُرْسِيّ, she said."
(Mnemonic: This word sounds a lot like a car seat for a baby, or like the word curtsy. I image Senda makes a curtsy with her long green skirt before she sits down in the chair, but then I imagine that the chair gets narrow and has lots of straps dangling around it like a car seat, and when she sits in it she gets stuck, and I have to help pull her out. Curtsy divided by Car seat = Cursiyy because the "t's" cancel out. Alternatively, you could imagine a chair carved with beautiful Arabic cursive and then drop the "v" that doesn't exist in Arabic.)
"Look," Senda then continued,
"This كُرْسِيّ and the others with it are in front of a طَاوِلَة that we could eat on or work on."
(Mnemonic: To remember it starting with a Dark "T," I imagine a huge Tarantula jump on the table. Senda screams and dives under the table. The tarantula starts ripping out the middle of the table until there is a whole in the middle that looks like a wheel. Then before he jumps through the hole, a security guard I alerted zaps him with a Taser and he freezes into a lifeless statue onto top of the wheel that is over terrified Senda. Reading the image top to bottom in the freeze frame, I see in my mind's eye (1) Taa (2) wi L (3) a {almost or "ah" screaming} (4) Senda, feminine representation at the end for te-marbuta.)
After teaching me those words Senda felt that uncomfortable feeling on your skin that makes you scratch.
"I'm scratching," she explained, "because I have an حُكَاكْ."
(Mnemonic: Imagine I take Senda into a cafe where the greeen Who's from Whoville in Dr. Seuss' book are serving Who Cake, which Senda takes one bit of and then starts to itch all over from a terrible alergic reaction. She scratches and scratches, but it won't go away until I get her out of the Who Cake Cafe into the cool refreshing night air.)
As we are walking out of the other end of the mall headed back home, we see two lean young men in designer cloths standing exceptionally close to each other while gazing into a Potter Barn store window at all the decorative household supplies in the display. The are pointing at the items in the window and talking excitedly to each other about them in a very feminine manner.
Senda say, I wonder if they are مِثْلِيْنْ like the two husbands we knew in Oakland.
(Mnemonic: These two guys seemed exaggeratedly stereotypical, and made me think there is a myth of lean homosexuals wearing designer cloths and acting feminine, but really, a lot of the homosexuals we knew in Oakland were neither lean nor girly at all. But MYTH LEAN sounds exactly like the word for two homosexuals in Arabic, so it's a good Mnemonic fit.)
Chris looses a point that Senda takes for her 1st Saturday point
Chris started to contextualize a word for us describing what he and Jasmine were wearing on their feet, but then he accidentally started to translated it. He only half translated it before stopping himself, but I declared it a lost point anyway. The one cardinal rule must be: NEVER TRANSLATE. Not even half-way. Sorry Chris, so the point goes to Senda who contextualized the word for me later. Senda said:
"Chris was wearing أَحْذِيَة with laces."
"Jasmine was wearing little أَحْذِيَة white with buckles."
"We wear أَحْذِيَة on our feet."
(Mnemonic: I imagine Senda saying about Jasmine's foot apparel, "AH! THEE YOUNG Girl's feet are so beautifully clad--let's get a pair like those for Mariem too!" Since there is no "ng" in Arabic, I know to drop that, and the word "Girl" referring to Jasmine reminds me to add the feminine te-marbutah.)
"Chris was wearing أَحْذِيَة with laces."
"Jasmine was wearing little أَحْذِيَة white with buckles."
"We wear أَحْذِيَة on our feet."
(Mnemonic: I imagine Senda saying about Jasmine's foot apparel, "AH! THEE YOUNG Girl's feet are so beautifully clad--let's get a pair like those for Mariem too!" Since there is no "ng" in Arabic, I know to drop that, and the word "Girl" referring to Jasmine reminds me to add the feminine te-marbutah.)
A 2nd point for Chris (your pants have 2 whats?)
Chris did a great job contextualizing the following word saying:
Jasmine is running with her two رِجْلَيْنْ, and her pants from top to bottom cover her two رِجْلَيْنْ.
(Mnemonic: There was a stone pathway extending up from the outdoor seating area where we were eating, and Jasmine was running up and down it. I imagined her running on the RIDGE LANE with her little lower limbs bending and bouncing along to propel her locomotion to help me replace that English word in my mind that I'm avoiding with Rij-layn.)
Jasmine is running with her two رِجْلَيْنْ, and her pants from top to bottom cover her two رِجْلَيْنْ.
(Mnemonic: There was a stone pathway extending up from the outdoor seating area where we were eating, and Jasmine was running up and down it. I imagined her running on the RIDGE LANE with her little lower limbs bending and bouncing along to propel her locomotion to help me replace that English word in my mind that I'm avoiding with Rij-layn.)
Saturday: the 1st point for Major Chris (in the fountain)
While Major Chris, Jocelyn, Senda, and I had lunch together, Chris noted that:
"There is مَاء in the fountain by us, and we are drinking مَاء as well."
-- (Mnemonic: There was a dog in the shopping center new where we were eating at the مَطَعَمْ
so I imagined the mutt drinking water that Jasmine splashed out of the found for him onto a mat below. When we call a dog a "mutt" in English, many of us use the glottal stop like the Hamza in Arabic, and then the word "mat" is close too that word too, so if you imagine a mutt lapping up water off a mat below a fountain you have the word for water in Arabic.)
Jocelyn had wanted to learn the word for fountain, but neither Chris or Senda could be sure of what fountain was in Modern Standard Arabic. Senda only new that particular word in Tunisia dialect.
The word for fountain is: نَاْفُوْرَة or without the diacritics which confuse the "f": نافورة
-- (Mnemonic: I can't think of a good Mnemonic for this one so I just cheat and use my animal icons for each consonant in the spelling with food for the vowels. At the top of the 3 level fountain I see a Nutcracker bird washing rotten egg off of himself for the long A sound. On the next level down I see a flamingo lying in the fountain with a pile of "ooh, la, la" acai berries on his stomach that he's popping into his mouth with his feathers. Finally, at the bottom I see a Raccoon with an rotten apple trying to hide behind the fountain from Jasmine who is laughing at him and trying to splash water at him. Jasmine comes at the end to give me the "it's a girl word" te-marbutah ending. I pull her into the story just to connect it with the context of learning the word today since Jasmine happened to be a significant part of the story of my day. And there I have it: fountain is Nae-foo-Rah.)
For those of you who want to find words to memorize and to post that you don't know like this, I confirmed this word as a good useful word in a five step process as follows.
(1) I went onto google translate to find the noun google suggests.
http://translate.google.com/#ar|en|%0A%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A9
(2nd) I search the word on google images to see if it would consistently pull up the image I wanted. Indeed, the word did pull up all fountain images on Google images.
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1793&bih=1150&q=%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A9&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=
(3rd) I looked up the word in an old fashion hard cover dictionary (Al-Mawrid Al-Hadeeth), and I did indeed find the word there as a legitimate MSA word for fountain--option number 3 to be precise. The first two options in the dictionary consisted of using two words to translate fountain, so the third one did in fact seem like an excellent choice on google.
(4th) I added the diacritics I thought I heard on Google Translate's audio pronunciation by copying and pasting the word into LEXILOGOS Arabic Keyboard at this website:
http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/arabic.htm
(5th) I copied the new spelling of the word I created with all of the vowel signs, and then I pasted the word back into Google translated to make sure Google still recognized the word as the same and translated it as such. It worked, so I knew I had spelled it correctly, so I then pasted the word into this blog as seen above.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Senda Friday Point #2 & #3
When we were driving to pick up a pizza, Senda started pointing out Burger joints, Taco Bells, Diners, and other such places:
It could be a fancy place or an in and out to-go place. I figured out what it was by describing it while avoiding the English word as well.
Then Senda got another point explaining that we eat the root word طْعَمْ .
-- (Mnemonic: Truck drivers use Tom Tom navigation systems very often to find their way to truck stops and Walmart Super Centers late at night when the night owl's are out. If there is a MaMa for Tom Tom, he found a full service, hot meal. If Tom Tom is all alone, he just found some road side snacks or groceries. Or, remember that you've got to feed the Tummy, or if Ma is cooking you're buying a hot sit down meal at a you-know-what).
To make these blog entries more meaningful communication as well (i+1, Krashen style)--in case all you readers don't get your Arabic speaking spouses to play the game--I'm not going to translate our new words in writing either--plus in makes it more meaningful for me too. So here are pictures instead:
2nd: طْعَمْ
"Look," Senda said pointing, "there's a مَطْعَمْ and there's another one, and that one too..."
It could be a fancy place or an in and out to-go place. I figured out what it was by describing it while avoiding the English word as well.
Then Senda got another point explaining that we eat the root word طْعَمْ .
-- (Mnemonic: Truck drivers use Tom Tom navigation systems very often to find their way to truck stops and Walmart Super Centers late at night when the night owl's are out. If there is a MaMa for Tom Tom, he found a full service, hot meal. If Tom Tom is all alone, he just found some road side snacks or groceries. Or, remember that you've got to feed the Tummy, or if Ma is cooking you're buying a hot sit down meal at a you-know-what).
To make these blog entries more meaningful communication as well (i+1, Krashen style)--in case all you readers don't get your Arabic speaking spouses to play the game--I'm not going to translate our new words in writing either--plus in makes it more meaningful for me too. So here are pictures instead:
1st: مَطْعَمْ
2nd: طْعَمْ
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