(#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.
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