Arab female singers: „Umm Kalthoum“ and „Fairuz“
Music plays an important role in every language. With music you can certainly learn better and it's always interesting to listen to the words of a song. In Arabic countries, young people today hear a lot of American music, but Umm Kalthoum and Fairuz still play an...
Arabic dialects across the Arab World
The Arabic language consists of several linguistic strands: two - Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic - are prevalent across the Arab world. Then there are various Arabic dialects that differ across regions. Across the Arab World Modern Standard Arabic fusHa...
Modern Standard Arabic: 5 Reasons why you should learn MSA and 1 Reason not to
Flashback to 2011. I am seventeen and I have just decided to study Arabic at University. I didn’t really know much about the Arabic language apart from that it had a beautiful script and I thought it would be useful as well as a challenge to learn. I certainly didn’t...
Expressing “have” in Arabic
In Arabic there is no verb that specifically expresses the concept "to have". Instead, in the Arabic language, you take a preposition and add a personal ending. There are several variations to this way of expressing 'have', but the principle is always the same. 'to...
Arabic Style Phone Wallpaper
Recently whilst in Morocco, I was sitting in a hotel lobby and on the wall behind me was a framed photograph of a piece of Arabic geometric tiling. It was beautiful and for some reason I thought it would make a nice phone background image. Then, by good luck, a few...
Travelling to Morocco with a Baby
We travelled with our one year old daughter to Morocco and had a very positive experience. Here are some notes from our experiences plus a few tips and a list of things we took with us. The people The first thing you notice when you are in Morocco is how friendly the...
Going on a Safari. The root (s-f-r) and how you can derive other words from this root in Arabic.
Nowadays a lot of people do not just go on a holiday, they're are interested in going on a safari. What does the word mean and what language does it come from? Safari comes from the Swahili language and means "journey". This word is also known in Arabic. It comes from...
Religions in Arab countries – a short overview
Islam When talking about countries in the Arab world, most people think that there is only one religion. However, this is not the case, as has been shown and documented time and again since the "Arab Spring". The great religion in Arab countries is, of course, Islam....
Historic travel writers in Arab countries
If you want to prepare your travels, read about the experiences of the many famous travel writers that the Arab world has attracted over the years. Unsurprisingly, many of these authors and travellers were British. Particularly fascinating are the books by the British...
