سيد درويش

Sayyed Darwish 1892-1923 - his Biography With this episode, I'm very excited to be launching Bilmasri on YouTube! As I explain in the podcast, how and where you use Bilmasri is up to you (of course :)). Some may find it works best for them to listen to the podcast on the go, or to listen to it while reading the text in the blogpost, but others may find it more convenient to watch the YouTube clip where the text appears on the screen. Anyway, as you see, I've worked on two episodes simultaneously - I was just too excited to get the YouTube channel populated! :) In this episode, I read from my مصري version of a فصحى article on the life of Egyptian composer and singer Sayyed Darwish (1892-1923). It's a relatively short episode as I don't follow it with a discussion of the language. For one thing, because the language is relatively straightforward, and also, I added a glossary column to the text below this time. Then in the next episode, which is already online, I play extracts from some of his songs and talk about the language in these. This is probably the first of two such episodes - so watch this space. As this is a new format, I look forward to hearing from you what you thought of it, and if you have any feedback or suggestions I can take on board for the next similar episodes. Should I do more song episodes? Let me know! Download pdf from here

Om Podcasten

Bilmasri is a podcast and blog (www.bilmasri.com) dedicated to the Egyptian dialect. It is for learners of Arabic (ideally anywhere between lower intermediate to advanced level) who have so far been focusing on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), who may or may not have some knowledge of another Arabic dialect, and who would like to understand how the Egyptian dialect works. The starting point of most blog posts and podcast episodes is a text in Modern Standard Arabic – a news story, an excerpt from a work of fiction, or another form of text – which has been adapted into Egyptian Arabic. In the first part of each podcast episode, I will slowly read out the Egyptian version of the text. In the second part, I will take you through (in English) one or more aspects of the language just heard: this could be the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, idioms, etc., with a particular focus on the differences and similarities between Egyptian and MSA. The blog post will contain both Egyptian Arabic and MSA versions of the text, followed by a brief summary of the podcast discussion. The blog’s tags will help you find any language-related topics you’re looking for, and the episodes they’re discussed in.