In this posting you will find both systematic and imaginative memory aids to help you master the vocabulary from Lesson one. Please post a reply to this post about what is helpful or not as I plan to write study guides for all of the tests for you. Thank you.
Lesson 1 -- 14 testable words
1:2) Fig = تِينْ = tiin = تين
1:6) Montana = مُونْتَانَا = muun-tae-nae = مونتانا
If you find a recording of this word pronounced for us online please post a reply letting us know. The problem with this word for the test is the different teachers are extremely likely to pronounce this word in different ways, just like journalists are notorious for pronouncing the U.S. territory Puerto Rico in different ways on the news since it is a borrowed proper noun from Spanish. Some news anchors pronounce it the English way as "por-da ree-koe" while others try to show off there cosmopolitan sophistication by pronouncing the word as a Spanish word saying "poo-air-toe ree-koe." I would bet a lot of money that they same this is going to happen on your test. Some teachers will pronounce this word like the English "Montana," some as "muun-tae-nae" in proper MSA, and others will create some admixture of the two forms since there are so many syllables in this word to mix up. Our solution? Memorize the spelling based on the correct MSA pronunciation, be ready to recognize the order of the consonants on the test as "M + N + T + N" no matter how mixed up the intervening vowels seem to be. I personally know a native speaker who changes her pronunciation of this word from one conversation with me to the next one, so beware! Loan words are dangerous to listen to closely to, but as a generally rule, you should know that loan words are almost always packed full of long vowels (either elif, ye, or w@w) in every syllable.
a) On a Montana horse ranch, imagine a rancher staples a crescent moon-shaped tag to his horses who all make the horse noise "nay" a lot in the process. That gives us Moon + ta(g) + nay in Montana.
b) With color coding this story can be changed a bit. Imagine that in camping in Montana one night, you look up at the full moon and the Big Dipper cast on the dark blue night sky. Suddenly the Big Digger turns into a giant tin can that scops up the moon. Then it turns over and dumps out two giant light brown acorns into the sky to replace the moon. Weird stories are the most memorable if you let your mind picture them well. Blue is for "uu" and 2 "acorns" is for "ae" and "ae." Now you know you have to fill in the vowel sounds for Montana (Moon + Tin) with "uu" + "ae" + "ae" to get "muun-tae-nae."
1:7) Motel = مُوتِيلْ = muu-tiil = موتيل
The words Arabic for Inn and Hotel on google translate look nothing like this loan word for motel in Arabic, so don't be surprised later in life if you encounter Arabs who don't even know the word motel. It's probably just an exotic import word from English. I could not find it's pronunciation online. If you do, let me know. My wife is a native Arabic speaker, and she pronounces this word according to the expected rules as "muu-tiil" but if we find any other examples online it would be good to know. I expect it will be pronounced many different ways by different teachers on the test since it is a long word (remember the Puerto Rico problem in English).
a) In terms of spelling this word, since it sounds like another loan word from English into Arabic, just remember that you have to pack every long vowel into it that you can in every syllable, because that is the default format for lone words.
b) To color code motel in Arabic, imagine you come to a motel under a blue and white crecent flag. The flag has a blue background and a white moon on it. The roof of the motel is blue, and the walls are white. The blue "uu" sound comes first reading the picture top to bottom and the white background for the "skiing" sound comes second.
1:8) Miami = مِيَامِي = mi-yae-mii = ميامي
This link shows us a perfect example of an Arabic Speaker abandoning the rules of how to correctly pronounce a word according to Arabic spelling rules to try to pronounce the word like it sounds in English (which is funny since it is originally a Spanish word and it sounds different in Spanish):
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميامي/
In this recording you clearly hear the Arabic speaker from Syria saying the long English "i" sound in "ice" which should not appear in this word unless it is spelled with a double "ye". Ask me more about this if you are interested, but in the mean time, you'll need to know how it is spelled for the test, and the pronunciation of the test giver might not help you. Beware of the "Puerto Rico" effect!
a) There are 3 syllables in this word. Spell it with as many long vowels as you can but don't double any letters to try to get a closer approximation of the real sound in English. The reason that loan words in Arabic are spelled with so many long vowels is because it helps them pronounce the word more like English while remaining faithful to Arabic spelling conventions. Rather, the reason for all the long vowels is because without them, many Arabic Speakers wouldn't know how to pronounce a new lone word at all (correctly or incorrectly) since all the short vowels have to be known for every word by memory.
b) To color code this loan word for perfect memory of the spelling we need white for "ski," brown for "acorn," and white again for "skiing" to get "mi-yae-mii." Noticing that Miami is a multiracial city of mostly white and brown people gives us a good hint.
1:9) Mile = مِيل = miil = ميل
This guy from Syrian who authored this next pronunciation link makes me happy because he pronounces this loan word from English according to proper Arabic spelling rules:
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميل#ar
a) The spelling of this word as a loan word is entire rule based. It's one syllable, and you add the closest long vowel sound you can to match the English spelling. Our letter "i" is translated as k@sRa and/or ye. Ye is the long vowel so throw it in between the "m" and the "l" sounds and you get "miil." As another toying with the memory though, you could also imagine an eel growing a mile long. Some catches it and sells it to a sushi mill for yellow eel sushi. What a lot of sushi!
b) To color code this crazy story imagine the workers wrap the mile long eel in white sticky rice before chopping it up.
1:10) Milan = مِيلاَنُو = mii-lae-nuu = ميلانو
Why we are doing lone words from Italian now is quite the mystery. On top of that the spelling seems debatable. On google translate Milan translated into Arabic is not spelled with the "w@w" at the end that we see here in Sound & Script. Nevertheless, onward with what the test requires the students to learn! But sorry, there is of course no pronunciation online of this Italian loan word--memorize it according to the rules of MSA pronunciation and spelling and then focus on the consonants when you hear the test givers pronounce this word as they are likely to do strange things to the vowels mixing various perceptions of English, Italian and Arabic pronunciation all jumbled together.
a) I hope you've heard of this city in Italy. If you don't even know this word in English, you could observe jokingly, that this word is a million miles away from the vocabulary you would like to know! And it kind of sounds like the word "million" so it works. But be careful since the word million is also on the test and it might have be chosen just to trick you! Excuse me--I mean to test your detailed accuracy. For the test, remember that this word doesn't sound sound as close to million as the word million does. Million in Arabic and English only 2 syllable (mIl-yuun). This word for Milan has 3 syllables.
b) To color code this word remember is has all 3 long vowels which we'll put in order as white, brown, and blue. Imagine a big barren mountain behind the city of Milan (which is in fact close to the Alps). Picture in your mind white snow covering the top of the mountian, then under that you see a band of brown dirt, and then at the bottom you see a blue lake. White for skiing, brown for acorns, and blue for blue. That gives us the order of the vowels, ii + ae + uu in the word mii-lae-nuu, which again is a million miles away from the words you want to be memorizing as your first words in Arabic.
1:11) NATO = نَاتُو = nae-tuu = ناتو
Be ready for strange pronunciation of this word in Arabic too. It's not only a loan word, it's a loan acronym! I bet you'll also eventually have to learn the real translation of NATO that actually translates the words North Atlantic Treaty Organization into 4 real Arabic words. That would make more sense. But in the mean time, let's memorize the correct pronunciation as "nae-tuu."
a) Since it's a lone word, expect two long vowels for the two syllables. The closest thing you have to an "O" in the three longs vowels, ye, elif, and w@w is w@w.
b) If I wanted to color code this I'd use brown (acorn) and blue, but why bother, it's a really easy word.
1:12a) He slept = نَامَ = nae-ma = نام
1:12b) She slept = نَامَت = nae-m@t = نامت
No pronunciation online.
a) to be continued...
Approaching the Vocab Systematically with Consistent Pronunciation Rules:
Why are the words "Berries" and "Fig" your first two words, you might wonder? Do you really need these two words for their meaning? No, of course you don't need to know these two words for their meanings as your first two words in Arabic, but you do need their phonetic examples for how long vowels are pronounced differently not only in the DURATION of the vowel sound (ski verses skiing, which is hard for English speakers to hear) but also in the QUALITY of the vowel sound (ski verse it, which is easy for us to hear). These two words are both perfect one syllable words showing you the effects of the long vowel letters "w@w" and "ye" in a way that is easy for the English native speaker to hear. If you haven't checked out my rules on Arabic vowel pronunciation yet to better understand and master this, please do so. You will find these rules summarized in the previous posting at:
In memorizing language vocabulary you should always try to memorize as little as possible about a word as a UNIQUE feature of just the one word you are working on. Being systematic means you look for broad patterns that you can apply to many words as a single rule that can take care of much of the work for you. For example, if you were learning English as a second language instead of Arabic, you could memorize that out of all the different sounds the letter "a" can make in English, the final sound in the word Virginia is an "a" sound like in the first sounds in the words "above" and "up." And you could memorize later that the final sound in "Montana" is "a" like in "above" and "up" again. And then later you could do the same for "Alabama." Maybe sometimes you get confused though and remember the pronunciation and use a different "a" sound like the sound in for "a" in "apple." However, if you find a system, a rule, a pattern in all of these words, you eliminated a vast amount of work for yourself. Because guess what, nearly all long words in English ending in the letter "a" are pronounced with the "a" sound that sounds like the "a" in "above" or "up." It is technically called the schwa sound. Won't that make it a lot easier to learn how to pronounce the words Virginia, Carolina, Florida, California, Montana, and all the other states ending in the letter "a" when you learn that rule? Absolutely.
Now guess what, this exact same rule works in Arabic for the letter "f@tHa" which is roughly equivalent to the English letter "a" in the range of sounds it covers (although it also includes a little bit of the English "e" sound as well). Whenever f@tHa comes at the end of a word it will be pronounced like the vowel sound in the word "up." If you know that rule, you'll never mispronounce the f@tHa (line-shaped diacritic on top of a consonant) at the end of a word in Arabic. All the other rules on the chart in the last post tell you all of the rest of the rules for vowels in Arabic. Now on to the rest of the memorization project.
Time to Get Crazy Imaginative:
(because Crazy Stories are Easier to Remember than Dots and Lines)
Format: Number on the test list, English, Arabic with diacritics, transliteration, Arabic without diacritics, audio of native Arabic speaker's pronunciation, simple crazy memory story, color coded memory story.
1:1) Berries = تُوتْ = tuut = توت
Hear the word pronounced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at:
a) My grandfather used to tell me an old rhyme about beans, but for our word, we should think of eating a bowl of berries mixed with beans, and the rhyme will be all the more true. As Grandpa said, "The more you eat, the more you TOOT, the more you TOOT the better you feel, and then you're ready for another meal!" Get it? Berries are tuut in Arabic. Do you want to remember to spell it with a long vowel? Imagining tooting for a long time after eating a bowl of berries mixed with beans.
b) If you've learned my color coding system for the vowels, you'll think of "uu" as blue (from blue ooz) and you'll know it has to be long because it is a closed syllable. With that in mind as a set of systematic rules, I could imagine a girl on the beach going virtually topless wearing nothing but two big round BLUE-BERRY stickers overlapping on one TiT. The one berry sticker covered tit tells me the consonants in berries are " t + t " while the blue color tells me in my rules system I'm dealing with the "blue ooze" or "blues" sound, either a DAmma or a DAmma with a w@w in Arabic. Since it is a closed syllable, I know it has to be a DAmma and a w@w giving me the transliterated "tuut."
1:2) Fig = تِينْ = tiin = تين
b) The long ii sound in white in my color coding system, so I look at just the consonants " t + n " for my second story. I imagine getting lost on a snowy white plane in the wilderness and starving. Then I stubble upon a cabin with noting but a giant two gallon tin can in it. I open it and find a giant fig preserved in syrup. Any other fruit would have frozen solid in the snow, I think to myself, but the fig, with so much sticky sugar in it and so little water doesn't freeze easily at all. After eating some of the giant fig, I find a map and a compass and realize I'm not far from base. I'm saved! I get back on my cross country skis heading in the right direction with my compass now. Fig is tiin because I found it in a tin is the white snow. I know it is written with a long vowel because it is a closed syllable. If it wasn't written with a long vowel the sound would be a short "I" sound like in "Igloo" and I had no warm yellow light in this story like I think of with my Igloo.
1:3) Money = مَالْ = m@@l = مال
Hear the word pronounced in the UAE at:
a) If your instructor slips out of MSA into a more dialectic accent, you might hear this word pronounced as mAAl as in a shopping mall (from an Iraqi perhaps) or as mael like in mail you pick up at the post office (from a North African perhaps), but the true RULE BASED MSA pronunciation of this word is m@@l with the "a" sound like the "a" in "apple." So on with the crazy stories now!
Imagine you go to the mall and discover that all the stores are selling nothing except apples (to remind you of the correct "a" sound). The Apple computer store is selling only Macintosh Apples of course, while strangely enough the Banana Republic is selling only Apple Sauce. At the movie theater, all the movies showing are about the Big Apple. This is ridiculous you think, "I'm taking my money and going home." However, just to make sure you still have all of your money, you take it out and look at it. To your horror, you see that all the pictures of the presidents have been replaced with two apples stacked on top of each other! You turn over the money and on the back you see a picture of the Apple Mall. What is happening! When you wake up from the is nightmare you member that "m@@l" is money. The money had pictures of two apples stacked up because it is a long vowel with an elif.
b) @ is for apple which is red. So I imagine I get two mysterious red envelopes in the mail. I open then to discover that they are full of money! Money in Mail tells me the word for money in Arabic has " m + l ". The two red envelopes tell me I need a long @@ sound. So miim + elif = l@m = money.
1:4) May = مَايُو = mae-yuu = مايو
Hear this word pronounced correctly in MSA by an Eygption at:
Also note, you can hear a different dialectic (or incorrect MSA) pronunciation from the UAE at the same link--be aware of these possible vowel mutations as they might throw you on the test.
a) Imagine your priest or clergy person blesses you as you enter DLI. You kneel as he puts his hand on your head and says, "May you graduate in May." "Mae-yuu" (pronounced just like "may you") is May in Arabic.
b) To color code this imagine that the clergy person blessing you is brown skinned and wearing a brown robe (because "a" in a brown "acorn" makes the ae sound with elif in an open Arabic syllable), while you are kneeling in the water in the cold blue ocean at the beach in Monterey in a blue shirt and blue shorts. You're skin is turning blue because you are so cold. All this blue in the second syllable (yuu) tells you it's a long "w@w" because of the "blue ooze and the blues" remind you of blue for the "uu" sound.
1:5) Million = مِليْوُن = mIl-yuun = مليون
Hear this word pronounced by someone from the UAE at:
http://www.forvo.com/word/مليون#ar
Note, the pronunciation in this recording is correct in the 1st syllable using the "I" vowel sound in "Igloo," but then in the 2nd syllable, the vowel in the "-yuun" sounds more like an "o" as it "goats" rather than the "uu" as in "blue ooze." It should sound like "uu" in "blue ooze" according to the rules; however, this "o" from "goats" sound seems to be a common dialectic effect on the DAmma and w@w from the more eastern regions of the Arabic speaking world.
a) Imagine you win a million dollars at casino. but then when you try to pick up the brief case you discover it is glued to the table. When you try to open it to take the money out you find it is glued shut. The double glue reminds us of the DAmma and w@w in the word that make it sound slightly different from the English pronunciation of the word which in turn remind us of the proper spelling for the test.
b) To color code this story, imagine it all takes place in front of the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon casino, and the they suit case is blue. (If I had wanted to encode the "I" part of the word from "Igloo" I would have used some yellow, but that part sounds just like English, so I ignore it as my default English spelling of the first syllable is sufficient.)
Hear this word pronounced by someone from the UAE at:
http://www.forvo.com/word/مليون#ar
Note, the pronunciation in this recording is correct in the 1st syllable using the "I" vowel sound in "Igloo," but then in the 2nd syllable, the vowel in the "-yuun" sounds more like an "o" as it "goats" rather than the "uu" as in "blue ooze." It should sound like "uu" in "blue ooze" according to the rules; however, this "o" from "goats" sound seems to be a common dialectic effect on the DAmma and w@w from the more eastern regions of the Arabic speaking world.
a) Imagine you win a million dollars at casino. but then when you try to pick up the brief case you discover it is glued to the table. When you try to open it to take the money out you find it is glued shut. The double glue reminds us of the DAmma and w@w in the word that make it sound slightly different from the English pronunciation of the word which in turn remind us of the proper spelling for the test.
b) To color code this story, imagine it all takes place in front of the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon casino, and the they suit case is blue. (If I had wanted to encode the "I" part of the word from "Igloo" I would have used some yellow, but that part sounds just like English, so I ignore it as my default English spelling of the first syllable is sufficient.)
1:6) Montana = مُونْتَانَا = muun-tae-nae = مونتانا
If you find a recording of this word pronounced for us online please post a reply letting us know. The problem with this word for the test is the different teachers are extremely likely to pronounce this word in different ways, just like journalists are notorious for pronouncing the U.S. territory Puerto Rico in different ways on the news since it is a borrowed proper noun from Spanish. Some news anchors pronounce it the English way as "por-da ree-koe" while others try to show off there cosmopolitan sophistication by pronouncing the word as a Spanish word saying "poo-air-toe ree-koe." I would bet a lot of money that they same this is going to happen on your test. Some teachers will pronounce this word like the English "Montana," some as "muun-tae-nae" in proper MSA, and others will create some admixture of the two forms since there are so many syllables in this word to mix up. Our solution? Memorize the spelling based on the correct MSA pronunciation, be ready to recognize the order of the consonants on the test as "M + N + T + N" no matter how mixed up the intervening vowels seem to be. I personally know a native speaker who changes her pronunciation of this word from one conversation with me to the next one, so beware! Loan words are dangerous to listen to closely to, but as a generally rule, you should know that loan words are almost always packed full of long vowels (either elif, ye, or w@w) in every syllable.
a) On a Montana horse ranch, imagine a rancher staples a crescent moon-shaped tag to his horses who all make the horse noise "nay" a lot in the process. That gives us Moon + ta(g) + nay in Montana.
b) With color coding this story can be changed a bit. Imagine that in camping in Montana one night, you look up at the full moon and the Big Dipper cast on the dark blue night sky. Suddenly the Big Digger turns into a giant tin can that scops up the moon. Then it turns over and dumps out two giant light brown acorns into the sky to replace the moon. Weird stories are the most memorable if you let your mind picture them well. Blue is for "uu" and 2 "acorns" is for "ae" and "ae." Now you know you have to fill in the vowel sounds for Montana (Moon + Tin) with "uu" + "ae" + "ae" to get "muun-tae-nae."
1:7) Motel = مُوتِيلْ = muu-tiil = موتيل
The words Arabic for Inn and Hotel on google translate look nothing like this loan word for motel in Arabic, so don't be surprised later in life if you encounter Arabs who don't even know the word motel. It's probably just an exotic import word from English. I could not find it's pronunciation online. If you do, let me know. My wife is a native Arabic speaker, and she pronounces this word according to the expected rules as "muu-tiil" but if we find any other examples online it would be good to know. I expect it will be pronounced many different ways by different teachers on the test since it is a long word (remember the Puerto Rico problem in English).
a) In terms of spelling this word, since it sounds like another loan word from English into Arabic, just remember that you have to pack every long vowel into it that you can in every syllable, because that is the default format for lone words.
b) To color code motel in Arabic, imagine you come to a motel under a blue and white crecent flag. The flag has a blue background and a white moon on it. The roof of the motel is blue, and the walls are white. The blue "uu" sound comes first reading the picture top to bottom and the white background for the "skiing" sound comes second.
1:8) Miami = مِيَامِي = mi-yae-mii = ميامي
This link shows us a perfect example of an Arabic Speaker abandoning the rules of how to correctly pronounce a word according to Arabic spelling rules to try to pronounce the word like it sounds in English (which is funny since it is originally a Spanish word and it sounds different in Spanish):
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميامي/
In this recording you clearly hear the Arabic speaker from Syria saying the long English "i" sound in "ice" which should not appear in this word unless it is spelled with a double "ye". Ask me more about this if you are interested, but in the mean time, you'll need to know how it is spelled for the test, and the pronunciation of the test giver might not help you. Beware of the "Puerto Rico" effect!
a) There are 3 syllables in this word. Spell it with as many long vowels as you can but don't double any letters to try to get a closer approximation of the real sound in English. The reason that loan words in Arabic are spelled with so many long vowels is because it helps them pronounce the word more like English while remaining faithful to Arabic spelling conventions. Rather, the reason for all the long vowels is because without them, many Arabic Speakers wouldn't know how to pronounce a new lone word at all (correctly or incorrectly) since all the short vowels have to be known for every word by memory.
b) To color code this loan word for perfect memory of the spelling we need white for "ski," brown for "acorn," and white again for "skiing" to get "mi-yae-mii." Noticing that Miami is a multiracial city of mostly white and brown people gives us a good hint.
1:9) Mile = مِيل = miil = ميل
This guy from Syrian who authored this next pronunciation link makes me happy because he pronounces this loan word from English according to proper Arabic spelling rules:
http://www.forvo.com/word/ميل#ar
a) The spelling of this word as a loan word is entire rule based. It's one syllable, and you add the closest long vowel sound you can to match the English spelling. Our letter "i" is translated as k@sRa and/or ye. Ye is the long vowel so throw it in between the "m" and the "l" sounds and you get "miil." As another toying with the memory though, you could also imagine an eel growing a mile long. Some catches it and sells it to a sushi mill for yellow eel sushi. What a lot of sushi!
b) To color code this crazy story imagine the workers wrap the mile long eel in white sticky rice before chopping it up.
1:10) Milan = مِيلاَنُو = mii-lae-nuu = ميلانو
Why we are doing lone words from Italian now is quite the mystery. On top of that the spelling seems debatable. On google translate Milan translated into Arabic is not spelled with the "w@w" at the end that we see here in Sound & Script. Nevertheless, onward with what the test requires the students to learn! But sorry, there is of course no pronunciation online of this Italian loan word--memorize it according to the rules of MSA pronunciation and spelling and then focus on the consonants when you hear the test givers pronounce this word as they are likely to do strange things to the vowels mixing various perceptions of English, Italian and Arabic pronunciation all jumbled together.
a) I hope you've heard of this city in Italy. If you don't even know this word in English, you could observe jokingly, that this word is a million miles away from the vocabulary you would like to know! And it kind of sounds like the word "million" so it works. But be careful since the word million is also on the test and it might have be chosen just to trick you! Excuse me--I mean to test your detailed accuracy. For the test, remember that this word doesn't sound sound as close to million as the word million does. Million in Arabic and English only 2 syllable (mIl-yuun). This word for Milan has 3 syllables.
b) To color code this word remember is has all 3 long vowels which we'll put in order as white, brown, and blue. Imagine a big barren mountain behind the city of Milan (which is in fact close to the Alps). Picture in your mind white snow covering the top of the mountian, then under that you see a band of brown dirt, and then at the bottom you see a blue lake. White for skiing, brown for acorns, and blue for blue. That gives us the order of the vowels, ii + ae + uu in the word mii-lae-nuu, which again is a million miles away from the words you want to be memorizing as your first words in Arabic.
1:11) NATO = نَاتُو = nae-tuu = ناتو
Be ready for strange pronunciation of this word in Arabic too. It's not only a loan word, it's a loan acronym! I bet you'll also eventually have to learn the real translation of NATO that actually translates the words North Atlantic Treaty Organization into 4 real Arabic words. That would make more sense. But in the mean time, let's memorize the correct pronunciation as "nae-tuu."
a) Since it's a lone word, expect two long vowels for the two syllables. The closest thing you have to an "O" in the three longs vowels, ye, elif, and w@w is w@w.
b) If I wanted to color code this I'd use brown (acorn) and blue, but why bother, it's a really easy word.
1:12a) He slept = نَامَ = nae-ma = نام
1:12b) She slept = نَامَت = nae-m@t = نامت
No pronunciation online.
a) to be continued...
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