Typing in Arabic

Sorry if this seems obvious but last night I asked why no one replied in Arabic (misspellings and all, no problem) and of course, it's more difficult if you don't have Arabic keyboards...

BUT YOU CAN do as I did: you can download Arabic as a language on most computers, and then work out the letters and use little snippets of stickers on the keys to mark the Arabic. Eventually the stickers get worn out, turn round, get lost... but they last quite a while even on my keyboard which is constantly in use. And it is surprisingly easy to type in Arabic - I thought it would take me ages per word but not really.

To change between English and Arabic fonts, by the way,you press Alt + Shift
و مش مشكل
ممكن نحاول

It could be that your biggest problem in understanding me will be my bad amiye in place of fusha.. As they say in Palestine (Ahmed do it in fusha for me!)
شو يدنا نساوي؟

X Nandita

Meal out

Sources close to Shepherd's Bush report table packed with Arabic students, delicious food, talking only Arabic (what else did they say?) (It is on the blog so it MUST be true...)

I thought it was time for another picture!

This is a SOAS student union banner that was sent to the Al Quds University students' union in Abu Dis in connection with the Camden Abu Dis Friendship that I have told you about...
Nandita

You may find this useful

http://www.camdenabudis.net/languagelinks.html

You may find this useful - I haven't finished exploring but I did find a story from alf layla w layla with sound and both languages, on "Natural Arabic" - looks good I think.

Missed you on Tuesday

I missed you all on Tuesday last week - and I was really looking forward to seeing you today I thought... But luckily looked up the time and found it's NEXT week. See you then!

Just to say to David, thanks for the Nizar Qabbani file - have also put it on my phone so am intending to be a model student and listen to it again and again (but let's see if it really happens)....

All seem so competent and information giving! And joining a club of "can do" people.
How nice.
John

عاى شان ممكن نكتب بالعربي

عندكم حروف العربعة علة جحازاتكم؟

Hello - Test

Second Try. Third time lucky?

G.

Nizar Qabbani

Hello again all,
Just a useful resource that I was given in a previous Arabic class which I though you might all be interested in after last night's class...
This website (http://www.damascus-online.com/Music/nizar_songs.htm) has Nizar Qabbani poems which have been recorded as songs which you can listen to, and also has the text of the poems, so that you can read along.
Alison

Thanks Nandita

Hello all,
I just wanted to say thanks to Nandita for setting this up - and so quickly! (I'm secretly jealous of you being quite this organised!)
See you Tuesday - and if not, for the meal!
Alison

This photo is just because I was sent it recently, and I like it.... I thought we need something visual and I wanted to see how it works... Nandita

Message from David

Hello everyone,



This is proving to be easier to do than I thought. Next week, I will bring a recorder to the lesson so that Ahmed can record the poem we did today. I can upload the file on to my computer as a WAV file and think there is a way of turning it into an MP3 file. Then what I will do is to post it on to the blog as an attachment so that it is available to everyone. Hopefully we can do this with all other interesting material as well.



See you all soon. I will confirm about our restaurant date for Thursday 27th March next week, and then make a booking.



David.

Hello everyone

Dear everyone,
Now let's see if this is any use to us!
One thing you can do is put the work from next week on here so those of us away can do it in our own time... if that is OK
Another thing is to put the MP3 file David's going to make (if it works!)
And another one is the arrangements for the meal out...
اتمنى عن سيكون مفيد النت
سلام
ننديتا