User talk:SarahFatimaK

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Again, welcome! Snood1205 (talk) 13:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

تنتين

Hello, please note my edit here. You should always use {{head}} or, if it exists, the appropriate language-specific headword template at the beginning of a part of speech section. User: The Ice Mage ^{talk to meh} 22:01, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Levantine Arabic grammar

Hi,

I've just started to learn Levantine Arabic, and I was desperate because of the lack of resources on the language. Then I discovered your recent edits on Wiktionary and the different templates you created. That's super useful: thank you so much!

I created a "Grammar" section on the Wikipedia page of Levantine Arabic where I re-used your template and updated them based on secondary sources (by the way, if you have good secondary sources on Levantine grammar, I'm interested). Feel free to improve it, and please let me know if there are any mistakes.

On Wikipedia, I added a subsection about numbers. However, I found only one secondary source, and it's a blog... Do you have any book or website about numbers in Levantine Arabic and their different forms? (masculine/feminine, independent/before or after a noun, cardinal/ordinal, how they agree with nouns, placed before or after, etc.)

Regards, A455bcd9 (talk) 11:29, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I've just seen your [User:SarahFatimaK/sandbox sandbox] on Wikipedia, it's quite impressive: congrats! A455bcd9 (talk) 11:34, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello A455bcd9, thank you for your comment. I am learning Levantine Arabic for a while now, focusing on the Palestinian and Jordanian dialect. I can understand your desperation, as it took a lot of time to find good ressources, fortunately resources are becoming more and more recently.

There a some Youtube channels I can recommend, like [Arabic One Day at a Time - Levantine], [Adrian Abdul-Bahá], [Learn Levantine Arabic] and [The Language Life], as well as books like "Olive Tree Dictionary" from J. Elihay and "The 101 Most Used Verbs" from Fridrik E. Tiedemann.

After I saw the Youtube video from AdrianAbdulBaha that he adds verbs to the Wiktionary, I got inspired to add more word in order to help other learners.

I prepared an article about Levantine Arabic grammar in my Wikipedia sandbox, but I did't publish it, as I don't feel confident enough that everything is correct, as I am still in the learning process. SarahFatimaK (talk) 19:58, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for creating the article on Levantine Arabic grammar. I will correct it, if I find any mistake that I am certain about. Regarding to the numbers, I don't know if there is any resource covering it in well, I got my knowledge from combining many resources. As I see you did it quite well already. SarahFatimaK (talk) 20:10, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello,

Thanks for these YouTube channels. How do you use them? Do you just pick videos you're interested in? Or do you follow a specific program? And how did you start learning? Did you know MSA before?

I started learning 3 weeks ago now. Here are the resources I'm using:

• Duolingo: the first 5 lessons, to learn the letters, then it's MSA so I don't do it.
• This old book has a lot of good sound pairs to learn pronunciation at the beginning
• Pimsleur Eastern Arabic: 90 lessons of 30 minutes each. Based on the Damascene dialect. I love Pimsleur. I learned Mandarin, Russian, and Turkish with it, it's amazing!
• Assimil - Arabe libanais de poche, unfortunately, Assimil doesn't have a full method for Levantine (they only have MSA and a short one for Moroccan Arabic), but this pocket guide is great for basic grammar & vocab. You need to speak French, but there's also a German version.
• For verbs, I got "The Most Used Verbs in Spoken Arabic: Jordan & Palestine (4th Edition, 2020)" by Fridrik E. Tiedemann Jr. but it's way too complex for me (at least for now after 3 weeks...). So I got Levantine Arabic Verbs: Conjugation Tables and Grammar, I find it way better than Tiedemann's book, at least as a beginning. The list of verbs on the back cover makes it 10x faster to use it. The book is based on Lebanese but they released a Palestinian version in February 2021.
• Colloquial Levantine Arabic by Khaled Nassra. Based on Lebanese. The method is good but there are too many mistakes, typos, and things missing.
• I read that Elihay's method "Speaking Arabic" was great. So I'll try it. Too bad it's still with CDs and there's no MP3... (but I guess people just find another way to download it...) It's also available in French and Hebrew.
• Talk Arabic by the BBC: I didn't buy it, only downloaded the free sample = 1 chapter = 10% :)
• Colloquial Arabic (Levantine): I've just started this one, so far it's good.

I also often find good articles on theLevanTongue and TeamMaha.

Thanks for your edits on Wikipedia! Regarding your sandbox, if you don't feel confident you can post it on Wikibooks instead: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Shelf:Languages_of_Asia

A455bcd9 (talk) 21:33, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your resources. Some of them I already tried before, but not all of them work well for me. I read the articles on theLevantTongue and TeamMaha too.

Unfortunately some resources more use a mix of dialect and MSA rather than pure dialect, others only use an unprecise transcription (approximation to English pronunciation) and no Arabic script at all.

I don't follow a specific program, but watch the videos by topics I am currently interested in as well as researching and comparing about the topic in different resources.

It seems that you are learning quite fast, wow only three weeks. I feel like I know not much after learning for two years, actually it's more researching than really aquiring the language.

I learnt some MSA before and still learning it along with Levantine Arabic but more for passive knowledge as people speak dialects rather than MSA.

I think Levantine dialects are widely understood and quite close to MSA, especially the Southern variants (as Lebanese and Syrian merge many vowels). SarahFatimaK (talk) 10:05, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi,

Yes, the lack of good comprehensive resources is terrible.

Haha thanks but I don't know if I'm learning that fast, I just know how to order coffee and ask basic questions for the moment. But it's true that because I'm looking everywhere for resources and because I started to write on Wikipedia I realize I'm making progress faster. Instead of passive learning the lack of resources forces me to be pro-active. There's always a silver lining! But I've never tried talking with a native speaker yet, this is the real test... Good to know that Levantine is widely understood, can't wait to experience this :) A455bcd9 (talk) 10:34, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I read again your draft and it's really good, several parts good be added to the Levantine Arabic, for instance, what you wrote on the dual, plural, collective nouns, detached pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, verb roots, verb forms, and passive participle. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:39, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello,

Have you tried this method by any chance? I only downloaded the sample but it looks nice, with both Arabic script and transliteration and I'm looking for advice... A455bcd9 (talk) 22:05, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I encountered that website before, but didn't try it yet as I focus on Southern Levantine and want avoid confusion. SarahFatimaK (talk) 14:40, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Btw. I started a wikibook for Levantine: [1] SarahFatimaK (talk) 08:20, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Wow what you've done on Wikibooks is impressive, congrats! By the way, should we try to get more contributors to edit the Levantine Arabic page on Wikipedia? Maybe AdrianAbdulBaha for instance? A455bcd9 (talk) 10:14, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! That would be great. From what I saw on his Youtube channel he is really an expert in both linguistics and Palestinian Arabic. SarahFatimaK (talk) 10:34, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Nice! I've just asked him on his user page. A455bcd9 (talk) 11:58, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

هن

Hi!

Thanks for reinstating هنه. I RFD'd it last year during a cleanup crusade, but my reasoning was way too shaky (Google results don't actually give real statistics on vernacular Arabic, go figure) and I've come to understand that ⟨هنه/هنة⟩ is just as common for people who tell apart /-e/ and /-i/ as ⟨هني⟩ is for people who don't.

But is ⟨هن⟩ as common as either of them? The pronoun doesn't have as strong a connection to Fusha's هن as هو and هي do to their Fusha equivalents, so it seems like there's less reason for people to spell it without a final vowel letter (contrary to the pronunciation, I mean) than there is for the singular pronouns. And, even though anecdotes of course can't be treated as actionable, I feel like I don't see ⟨هن⟩ nearly as often online as ⟨هني⟩ or ⟨هنه/هنة⟩. Dunno. Do you happen to know if there's a preferred spelling across formal publications on Levantine? And it's your call since you're currently the active NL/SL editor (thanks for the good work!), but do you think the main form should be at one of those other two pages instead of at هن? —M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 05:11, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @M._I._Wright:, thank you for your feedback.

Since I'm no expert on North Levantine Arabic and there is no standard orthography, I can't really answer the question which spelling is the most common one. I chose هن as main entry, because it resembles the MSA spelling and shows the ethymology as well as for consistency with هو and هي. SarahFatimaK (talk) 06:34, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I've moved the discussion to Talk:هن so that other users can participate as well SarahFatimaK (talk) 08:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

That's fine! I just wanted to know if the main word should be moved or not in order to know what to do with هني. I just changed it to point to هن as an alternative form and updated the other pages as well. Thanks again for adding it. —M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 11:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Lake Constance Alemannic

What do you think of Lake Constance Alemannic in general? Apisite (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

A question with regard to a root

Hello, SarahFatimaK,

Can you please explain the root of the arabic word: stalbet?

Thanks, Shlomo

ShlomoKatzav (talk) 10:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi, long time no speak :) How are you doing? If you're interested a massive Palestinian Arabic dictionary has just been released and I'd like to add its content to Wiktionary, feedback welcome: Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2022/December#Automatic_import_from_Palestinian_Arabic_dictionary. Best, A455bcd9 (talk) 13:37, 20 December 2022 (UTC)