Episode 28/ Arabic dialects chat 1: with Hend from Baghdad

Back after a long hiatus of over a year(!) with this first in -hopefully- a series of chats with people from across Arabic speaking countries. As I mentioned in my last post, the podcast (as and when it happens) will now be primarily on YouTube. I think this is particularly helpful in this series of Arabic dialects, as you can see us talk and I'll be putting captions of certain terms on the screen as they come up. That way I hope you can see how Egyptian compares to other dialects, and how we manage to communicate despite the differences. Each episode will end with us going through a list of basic phrases, with some handy captions. In this first episode I chat with Hend Saeed, from Baghdad, Iraq, who lives in Dubai. We chatted about life in Dubai, different Iraqi dialects, traditional songs and writing in dialect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmh6xTu0BJc&list=PLSGSghzVErE8aV9LFK8wWKjDodkvLZxen&index=9&ab_channel=Bilmasri

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.