Welcome to "belmaṣri", a podcast introduction to Egyptian Arabic. My name is Karim, and I want to help you get acquainted with one of the most beautiful languages in the world, and one that is spoken by between 300 and 420 Million people worldwide.

In our second episode, we will start with our first few words in Egyptian. I will tell you some useful words and expressions, explain what they mean and when they can be used, and you will try to pronounce them, and hopefully learn them so you can impress the first Arabic speaker you meet :-) After explaining the phrase or word, I will say it again twice, giving you a few seconds to repeat after me. It’s very important to repeat the words yourself, and even better if you can do it outloud. This allows you to train your mouth on these new sounds, and it also allows you to hear yourself speak.

One hint that I believe is very useful when learning to speak a new language is to record yourself…recording your own voice and comparing it to a native speaker allows you to hear differences that help you identify where your deficiencies are. Often when speaking a foreign language, we think we are pronouncing well, because we hear our own voice inside our head, but not how it sounds to others. Comparing your own pronounciation with mine will give you an idea which sounds or letters you should focus on.

OK. Let’s get to some Arabic! We can start with some greetings.

To say “good morning” in Egyptian, we say “ṣabāḥ‿elxēr”.

The word “ṣabāḥ” means “morning”. “el”, as we mentioned in the last episode, means “the”. “xēr” means “good” (in the sense of good and evil), “goodness”, and also in a sense “blessing”, as in something good that comes or happens to you.

You’ve probably noticed that there is almost no break between the two words. This tends to happen in Arabic when a word starts with “el” - the. The previous word tends to be attached, so it sounds like it’s a single word. Do not be deceived :-) This is important when you talk to native speakers. You must try to find where a word ends and the next one begins. It also sounds great if you are able to do this yourself, as it makes you sound more like a native. This connection is represented by a “connector” between the two words as you can see in the transcript.

Now let’s break down the sounds. The word “ṣabāḥ” starts with the same heavy “s” sound that we met last episode in the word “belmaṣri”. You’ll also notice that the “a” sound is extended, and the word ends with a new sound, represented by an “h” with a dot underneath - ḥ. This is one of the sounds that I have encountered only in Arabic. It’s produced inside the throat, and the most similar letter to it would be an “h” in English, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s hard to describe how to produce it, but what I can tell you is that it feels like pronouncing an “h” in a stronger way. The “h” for me feels like it comes from a superficial place, like a whisper, but the “heavy h” comes more from the throat. Otherwise they are very similar. This is one of the letters where if you get stuck you can just pronounce it as an “h”. You will be understood.

The sound represented by an x is often also written as “kh”…like Genghis Khan. It’s also a sound that originates in throat...you will meet several sounds in Arabic that are this way.

Again the sound of the “e” in xēr is a long vowel sound, and that’s why it’s represented with a dash on top.

Now let’s leave the sounds and go a bit into the structure of the phrase. Literally translated, it would be “morning the good”, but really it’s more like “morning of the good”, or “morning of the blessings”…the “of” part is not really written, but in Arabic often when you have a word with no “el” or “the” in the beginning, followed by a word with an “el” or “the” in the beginning, there is often an implied “of”…it’s called “adding a word to a word” in Arabic. It doesn’t matter what it’s called, but just keep that in mind…an “indefinite” word followed by a “definite” word often implies this type of connection between the two words. Another example of this structure could be "ayyām‿essa𝜀āda". "Ayyām" means "days", and "essa𝜀āda" means "the happiness". The meaning of the phrase would be "days of the happiness", or more accurately "the days of happiness".

Now you try it. I will say the phrase twice, and leave you a few seconds to repeat after me.

OK enough with this phrase :-)

So how do we answer this greeting? If someone greets you saying “ṣabāḥ‿elxēr”, you reply saying “ṣabāḥ‿ennūr”. As you can see, the first part is quite similar, but instead of saying “morning of the blessings” (i.e. a blessed morning to you), you say “morning of the light” (i.e. a bright morning to you).

“nūr” means light, as you probably guessed. You may have noticed that when we say “the light”, we don’t say “elnūr” (just adding an “el” or “the” prefix), but rather we say “ennūr”. This is due to a quirk in how the “el” prefix works. Depending on the letter with which the word starts, the “l” sound or part of “el” can be replaced with the first letter of the word. This is the case for words that start with an “n” sound.

We will re-visit this topic in a future episode I’m sure, but just keep it in mind…nothing will happen if you say “elnūr”. People will still understand you.

Now you try it. I will say the phrase twice, and leave you a few seconds to repeat after me.

One more point to mention here is the sound of the letter “r” in Arabic. The “r” that we have is not very similar to the English “r”. The sound of the “r” in Arabic is pretty hard. This is often called a “rolling r”, and it’s the type of sound you find, for example, in the Spanish language, but it’s often not easy for people who don’t have that sound in their native language to pronounce it. What happens is that your tongue vibrates when you exhale, and that’s what makes the “trill” sound. The sound doesn’t have to be very long, but the sound is hard, and you have this movement with the tongue for a short period of time.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvement, just e-mail me at belmasri@posteo.org.

And, till then, ma𝜀‿essalama.