Episode 8: the situation (الوضع) in Lebanon

Levantine Arabic: Bayni w Baynak

Hello and welcome back to Series 2 of بيني و بينك

For the next few months, along with Safa and Razan's help I'm aiming to publish new episodes every monday so stay tuned!

Also please follow this link to see the complete vocab analysis

Also note that if you're listening from Spotify the vocab link may not work so check us out on google podcasts instead.

! انشالله تنبسطوا

:)

Vocab and some mistakes to watch out for:

1:08: The plural of شي (thing) is أشياء. So I tried to say “some things” : كم اشياء (kam ishia’). BUT, كم ALWAYS takes singular. So you have to say : كم شي or more commonly كم شغلة (kam shaghle)

1:16: I said : مشاكل اقتصادي (mushekil iqtiSaadi) مشاكل is the plural of مشكلة (problem) and اقتصادي is the adjective: economic. So “economic problems” BUT I forgot to agree اقتصادي ، it should be in the feminine as it agrees with a non human plural: مشاكل اقتصادية (mushekil iqtiSaadiye)

1:22: I said: كان في انفجار كتير حقير هناك.

I was trying to say: "There was a really terrible explosion there". But it turns out حقير really doesn't work in this context. It means "despicable/vile/bastard" specifically use to describe people. Meanwhile to describe the explosion I could have used رهيب (raheeb) or كارثي (kerissi)

It’s worth also remembering هناك (hunaak) is the equivalent of هنيك (huneek) and means there. هناك is more Jordanian where as هنيك is Lebanese

1:37: Safa said: هيدا من أصعب السنين الي بتمره على لبنان these are some of the worst years Lebanon has gone through.

1:50: Safa said: ارتفاع الدولار (urtifa3 ildollar) the rise (in price) of the dollar

2:06: Safa said: صار في عنا مشكلة جديدة literally: it happened there to us a new problem

2:32: Safa said: كتير في صعوبات (ktir fi s3owbet) there are lots of difficulties. صعوبات comes from the same root as صعب (difficult). It’s important to realise how flexible word order can be in spoken Arabic. You could also say: في كتير صعوبات or possibly even : في صعوبات كتيرة

2:54: Safa said بيروت تدمّرت (Beirut itdamarit). Beirut was destroyed/wrecked.

Important to note how the active/passive works here: دمّر is form 2, which means to make it passive you convert it to form 5: تدمّرت.

The same happens with علّم (he taught) which goes to تعلّم (he learnt/he was taught)

3:44: I said كل هيدا المنطقة (all this neighbourhood) probably meant to say: كل هاي المناطق (all these neighbourhoods

4:06: I said فاديين (empty) again as an adjective describing a non human plural (مناطق) should probably just be feminine sing: فادية . I was just trying to highlight that these neighbourhoods aren’t empty but rather very residential, very full ملانة (maleni)

4:38: Safa said بالمناطق الي بجبل صار في أضرار (in the areas in the mountains there was damage)

5:10: Safa said و في بيوت حدنا شوي وقع الازاز (and there are houses next to us where some of the glass was broken) literally : the glass fell a little

5:20: Safa said الصوت بالجنوب بالبنان انسمع (the sound was heard in the south of Lebanon) Passives: form 1 words shift to form 7 in the passive.