52/60
That was my score from today's Arabic test.
Would've been higher if teacher hadn't put in new words and new grammar...but who cares? I'm the only student in the class! And she ain't gonna hit me.
Finished book #1, which was the basics of Yemeni Arabic.
Next: foos-ha i.e. formal Arabic
This has been the hardest language I've ever learnt. How do you memorise words that don't sound like anything you know?
farhan(ah) - happy (ok, I have a cousin called Farhanah...easy)
dhaki - smart (also easy, I have a smart cousin whose called Zaki)
shittaa - winter (right, think of a s****y winter)
saidaliya - pharmacy (a little harder)
mustaqbal - future (damn it!)
mus-tash-fah - hospital (what the...???)
...and groups of words sound similar, e.g. colours:
aswad - azraq - ahmar - akhdar - asfar - abyad
...and then there are the many, many grammatical rules.
Take numbers: even numbers have genders! Sometimes you use masculine numbers with feminine nouns, or vice versa. But not for food - when ordering food use the masculine form of number with the singular noun (e.g. 4 steak). Otherwise for numbers 3 to 10, use plural nouns (e.g. 3 cars) but beyond 10, use singular nouns (e.g. 15 car). For 2 things, just add the 'ain' suffix (e.g. 2 TVs = televizyon-ain). If numbers 11 to 19 are followed by a noun, add the suffix 'r' to the number.
Got that? :o)
Would've been higher if teacher hadn't put in new words and new grammar...but who cares? I'm the only student in the class! And she ain't gonna hit me.
Finished book #1, which was the basics of Yemeni Arabic.
Next: foos-ha i.e. formal Arabic
This has been the hardest language I've ever learnt. How do you memorise words that don't sound like anything you know?
farhan(ah) - happy (ok, I have a cousin called Farhanah...easy)
dhaki - smart (also easy, I have a smart cousin whose called Zaki)
shittaa - winter (right, think of a s****y winter)
saidaliya - pharmacy (a little harder)
mustaqbal - future (damn it!)
mus-tash-fah - hospital (what the...???)
...and groups of words sound similar, e.g. colours:
aswad - azraq - ahmar - akhdar - asfar - abyad
...and then there are the many, many grammatical rules.
Take numbers: even numbers have genders! Sometimes you use masculine numbers with feminine nouns, or vice versa. But not for food - when ordering food use the masculine form of number with the singular noun (e.g. 4 steak). Otherwise for numbers 3 to 10, use plural nouns (e.g. 3 cars) but beyond 10, use singular nouns (e.g. 15 car). For 2 things, just add the 'ain' suffix (e.g. 2 TVs = televizyon-ain). If numbers 11 to 19 are followed by a noun, add the suffix 'r' to the number.
Got that? :o)
Comments
And in regards to Otak-otak, it's fish paste lah!
LOL!