تاكسي – 2

2nd reading from Khaled Al-Khamissi's "Taxi" Today we revisit Al-Khamissi's delightful compilation of conversations with Cairo taxi drivers, the 'aamiya/ fusha book "Taxi" from 2006 (I had previously read a chapter from it back in June). This episode is slightly different from past ones, in that the reading was very kindly contributed by Amani Hassan*, senior Arabic lecturer at New York University. Her recording features a male voice in the role of the taxi driver, which works very well I think! Below, you will find the original text, and after every section, I have provided my fusha "translation" of the bilmasri text. All except for the final paragraph, which was already written in fusha (narrator's voice). The other thing that's different, and which I intend to do more often in the future, is that Amani has also provided me with some comprehension questions on the text, which she has used with her students. After you listen to the chapter, I ask those questions, and replay the relevant part of the story. You can then pause the recording to try and answer it yourself, before listening to my proposed response to the question. I hope you find this a useful addition! In the end I explain a few words and expressions that come up in the text: لا مؤاخذة، بالعافية، كله كوم و... كوم، يمد إيده، كلها كام سنة . More vocab is provided in the glossary at the bottom of this page. As I've been doing for the past two episodes, the text and any additional material are now available as downloadable pdfs - links below. Enjoy, and as usual, please let me know if you have any questions or comments! --- *Just a quick erratum: I'm sorry for mispronouncing Amani's surname, which is حسّان not حسن, but in my defense it's an easy mistake to make, as both are written the same way in English!! :D https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HMoNPGV2TDu6LEG4HYKvTbE4U63J4kcT/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RAZpfZfdcX_2qDZY2B6hk6_E1PNksVQr/view?usp=sharing

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.