Something for Arabic readers

أنا من أمريكا. لكن الآن أنا أسكن في المملكة العربية السعودية. أدّرس اللغة الانكليزية هنا. الجميع يعرفون السعودية بلد غني. لكنهم ربما لا يعرفون أن المجتمع السعودي ممتلئ بالمتناقضات الاجتماعية. في الواقع أن الغنى يسبب متناقضات في المجتمع السعودي. و هذه مقالات قصيرة سوف أحدثكم عن بعض منها.

مثلاً الأغلبية من السعوديين كسالي جداً. عندما أقول هذا أنا لست متكبر.لكن لو قارنا طالب اللغة الانكليزية في شرق آسيا وبين طالب لغة أجنبية من أمريكا ثم طالب السعودية نجد أن طالب السعودية كسلان جدّا. عند تعلّم اللغة الأجنبية يحتاج الطالب إلى حافز. للأسف نجد أن السبب الرئيسي للالتحاق بالجامعات لدي كثير من الطلاب السعوديين هو لأن حكومة السعودية تدفع لهم مبالغ مالية شهرية طيلة فترة الدراسة.

متناقض آخر في المجتمع السعودي عن الأجانب والعمل. عموماً نجد أن السعوديون لا يحبون الأجانب. لكنهم أيضاً لا يريدوا أن يعملوا بأنفسهم.

Why non-native Arabic speakers should not say "yanii"

Every language has its fillers. In American English it's "um," "hmmm" "let me see". In Japanese it's "eee-tooo" and anybody who gets beyond the basics in Japanese and spends anytime at all in the country learns how useful this phrase can be when you are trying to think of what to say while keeping your listener attuned to your flow of speech. In French there is something called "the boff" which is a kind of puffiness with the lips and a bit of air you release when you want to think out loud. When you get fairly decent at French you find it coming out of your mouth automatically.

In Modern Standard Arabic the linguistic utterance that best equates here is "yanii." It literally means "it/that means." And you use it sort of like this. "So, Ahmad is coming over today and bringing an entire carton of Pepsi. So, that means we will not need to buy any now since the issue of drinks has been taken care of." There would be nothing wrong with the interlocutor (the other of the two or more speakers) in that conversation saying "yanii we need to pay Ahmad when he gets here then right?" because the phrase is used in Arabic far more than "it means" is used in English. It' almost like "so" in English and is uttered countless times a day by MSA speakers.

Native Arabic speakers also often use yanii when they are speaking English. It happens so often with some people that you just get used to it. However, there is a woman at the female branch where I teach who is a native speaker of English and who uses yanii in her English. She uses it just to sound like she is acculturated. She also uses phrases such as the very annoying "al himdu Illa" (thanks be to God) and "In sha Allah" just about as much as native Arabic speakers do as well, especially Saudis. The thing is, the latter two phrases are acceptable in the way that saying "gambaru" ("going for it") is when you are in Japan even when you are speaking English. But yanii comes from second language interference and is not an acceptable sign of acculturation and respect for Muslim mores.

I can do a bit of empirical research on this to prove it. Give me some time on this, but I guarantee that if I ask some native Arabic speakers if they think this is acceptable they will agree that it sounds retarded.. yanii like somebody trying to sound cool and taking a cheap shot at doing so.

Arabii in na house ya'll!!!

If anyone reading my pages is interested in Arabic, keep reading this post. If you are as frustrated as I have been for years at how difficult Arabic is to learn (even when you have gone to the trouble of moving to a corner of the Middle East like I have), then you need to know about the Arab Academy. Despite their rather dumb-sounding name (which makes it sound like a place where you go to learn to be an Arab), it is everything an online study course should be and more. It is not expensive. It is very well done. It has lots and lots of excellent materials, study modules, exercises, online tests and even parts where you can interactive with live teachers. I discovered it about a month ago, just paid my money and signed on yesterday and cannot recommend it highly enough, especially for what it costs.


Here is the url: http://www.arabacademy.com/