There we were, merrily Google Translating the answer to all our troubles when a voice asked
"why are you using google translate?...
You will not learn this way."
What became apparent extremely early on in our study of Arabic was that without a decent bilingual dictionary (which we are yet to find) and bearing in mind the eclectic vocabulary choices of Al-Kitaab we were unable to describe such mundane household items as cutlery, any animal that is not a dog or mule or any food that isn't Chicken, Kunaafa or rolled dried apricots. A more detailed study of this problem was provided last year by Gabriella who's inspired description is reproduced below with kind permission of the author:
Things To Do Instead Of Revision #29
Make a list of words we have studied in Arabic before the colours.
United Nations الأمم المتحدة political science العلوم السياسية anthropology علم الانسان prophet نبي Caliph, successor خليفة crowding, overcrowdedness ازدحام business administration إدارة الأعمال graduate fellow معيد to be cut off الانقطاع pharmacology الصيدلة scholarship award, grant منحة longing for native land الغربة to settle down الاستقرار rolled dried apricots كمر الدين
Apologies to those not studying Arabic (or any language) who may not find this as amusing as I have.
The usefulness of good old GT cannot be played down when it comes to a tight spot. Rudi ended up advocating cooking chicken by the heat of the sun simply because we didn't know any other cooking verbs - we learnt 'raw' in that tutorial too.
Finally here is a fun picture of some of the ahem سقواد (squad) in our favourite lecture of the week #thursdayswithSalima #apologiesformyface
