I’ve BS’d My Way This Far...
Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually smart, or if I just know how to BS a class really well. I truly wonder how I’ve made it this far in Arabic with the little vocab I’ve memorized.
Tuesday, September 7
Remember when I talked about the word “the” in the Arabic language? “The” translates to “-ال” (al-) in Arabic. It’s a prefix added onto the beginning of words. That prefix can majorly change the structure of a phrase, or even create a sentence. There’s a chart in my book that looks similar to this:
A) a beautiful city = مدينة جميلة
B) the beautiful city = المدينة الجميلة
C) The city is beautiful. = المدينة جميلة.
For A, ‘al-’ is not present at all, so the phrase is simply “a beautiful city.” For B, “al-” is added onto both the noun and the adjective to make the phrase “the beautiful city.” In Arabic, there must be agreement between the noun and the adjective. For C, the sentence “The city is beautiful” is created when “al-” is added to the noun but not the adjective. There is no verb “to be” in Arabic, so the “is” is implied in the sentence.
I know, your head is probably spinning from reading that. But all that matters is that I understand it. My professor did a very good job of explaining it, and our homework assigned for Thursday covered translating sentences with these different structures.
My professor also assigned us some homework online. The company of the book we use has changed websites over the summer, so it’ll be a learning experience for all of us as we learn how to navigate this online companion.
Thursday, September 9
Well, the website didn’t work. None of the assignments were posted. All it said was that I was enrolled in the Arabic 3 course at Hofstra University for the Fall 2021 semester. So, the first twenty minutes or so consisted of attempting to figure out how to post the course material so we students could see it.
Finally, we moved onto the other homework that was assigned. I felt lazy the previous night so I typed my Arabic homework. I have the keyboard downloaded, and my laptop has a touchscreen, so I just used my finger to type my homework from my bed. Afterwards, I printed it out and made corrections during class.
Class actually went by quickly. Some classes are better than others, and today was a good one.
Arabic Word of the Week
rain / matar / مطر