People in my Arabic class yesterday were talking about this New York Times story about an Arab-American army recruiter. A photo that ran with the story shows a T-shirt that reads “If you can read this” (in Arabic) and then below, “The National Guard needs you” (in English). But the grammar of the first line seems incorrect. Normally, after the conditional particle, the verb should be in the past, not the present. (I’d like native Arabic speakers to confirm this.) This would hardly be the first or most egregious mistake the US armed forces have made trying to communicate with Arabs..
Yes, in proper precious writing. However, it hardly seems a particularly important point. Grammar nitpicking is fairly precious outside of school, my child.
The post was put up as something funny and curious. The New York Times article itself is quite interesting. And a lot of people actually care about “proper, precious” writing. You should respond to the content, not try to condescend to me for being in “school” (that’s grad school) and certainly not call me “child.”
You are right. In proper precious writing idha should be followed by perfect, or jussive if it is a negation… But then again, maybe that’s what they’re searching for in the American army, people who are bright enough to find the mistake… 😀
Nitpicking aside, the top part of the shirt refers to a shirt currently being sold on CafePress that says (in arabic- We Shall Not Be Silent) (In English) If you can read this you should be profiled.
More importantly, this guy is a joke as a recruiter in San Diego. Nobody trusts him.
Yes, Ursula absolutely wrong.
But to flip the joke Nitpicker, maybe they’re looking for people who find such Arabic proper.
I guess the joke’s on the army if they can’t get their grammar right – they probably just asked the first Arabic speaker they could find, whose grammar was not perfect, to translate. But then again, they’re not looking for Arabic teachers or people to write Al Jazeera newscasts so much as people who can communicate wa bas, I’d imagine.
You’re right, although this structure seem to appear somehow in speech and other MSA usage.
However, just run a google of إذا تريد compared to إذا كنت تريد it leaves no doubt what is the most widespread usage and the MSA rule is very clear that a condition should be followed with a verb in the perfect tense.
oh my goodness, the US army have apparently made a miniscule grammatical mistake in arabic! If arabs can’t even handle the most common language in the world without errors, it’s a bit pot calling the kettle black to expect them to know an obscure language such as arabic inside out. Lets not even mention the fact that most arabs struggle with arabic grammar- grow up!
oh my goodness, the US army have apparently made a miniscule grammatical mistake in arabic! If arabs can’t even handle the most common language in the world without errors, it’s a bit pot calling the kettle black to expect them to know an obscure language such as arabic inside out. Lets not even mention the fact that most arabs struggle with arabic grammar- grow up!
Agree that many Arabs struggle with correct grammar too, and if the army is really just looking for people to be able to communicate with colonial subjects/local officials in Iraq, it’s not so important. If, however, the army is looking for folks to understand government documents or translate communiques from Al Qaeda or Iraqi insurgents, then perhaps grammatical nuances make a difference.
Heba, pots and kettles aside, I don’t think one can call Arabic an ‘obscure’ language. At least if measuring by # of people speaking it, if Arabic is obscure, then French and German are quaint little forgettable things, and, hot damn, Hebrew, Latvian, and whatever it is they speak in Iceland, are just nonexistent.
sp, i took the advertising for ‘on the ground’ personnel in which case even a faint grasp of arabic would come handy. Even if they were recruiting for translation, i think someone who could read that phrase and had a good grasp of the arabic language would be worth recruiting and training up to the required level.
dan, i take it you’ve learnt french, german and arabic to qualify in making such a statement. if you had, you wouldn’t have said what you did! :)) obscurity as in how complex it is as oppose to how many ppl speak it
I’m not really going to weigh in on the finer grammatical points of this debate, but having spent a fair bit of time on the ground in Iraq, watching US troops interact with Iraqis, more (and better) translators would improve the situation dramatically. A good translator can make the difference between a frustrated angry situation where soldiers start abusing people and one in which everyone leaves happy. More Arabic speakers accompanying US troops in Iraq would make life better for Iraqis not worse. The number of nasty incidents that have come out of language breakdowns are rather numerous.