Levantine Arabic Study Guide for Assignment 10

Five College Center for the Study of World Languages – Spoken Arabic Courses

Study guide version: August 2014

Unit III –“A Room with a Bath” – FunctionF

1.Work through all the textbook materials related to Function F.

2.Listen to and practice all of the audio and video samples. The more Levantine Arabic you hear, the more you will understand. Practice imitating the speakers. It can be helpful to memorize short bits of text or short dialogues.

3.Be prepared to practice identifying and describing members of a large extended family.

How to practice the material for this assignment

Practicing Function F, Talking about your family:

  • Make a vocabulary list for yourself of important terms related to family. Think of the terms you would need if someone asks you about your family. What are the expressions you would use to inquire about someone else’s family? How do you express people’s ages? Compare your Levantine and MSA vocabulary.
  • After you review the correct way to refer to family members, their ages and the fact that one “has” children, practice creating families for everyone you run into this week; imagine a family as you walk across campus: how many children to they have, what are their names, ages, etc. Be prepared both to describe your family and to ask questions about other people’s families.
  • Create a family tree for yourself or make one up. Talk your way through it, making sure you know how to explain the familial relationships and names and ages. Don’t forget to be able to identify the first-born son and so forth.
  • Find real family photos or images of familes (from the web) and be prepared to describe the people in the photos in terms of their relationships to one another. You can describe real people or make up descriptions and family relationship for them.
  • Try to vocalize a very complex family tree using as many of the “More relatives” vocabulary.

More preparation for conversation session:

  • Bring your real or imaginary family tree drawing to the conversation session. Be prepared to look at various family trees, start with various family members, and describe the relationship of each of the others to that person.
  • Bring a picture of a family to your conversation session. Be prepared to describe the people in the picture and their relationship to one another. It can be a family picture of your own or you can take picture from the web and make up the family relationships.
  • You run into your best friend from high school whom you haven’t seen in 15 years. You knew his/her extended family well in the past, but now it has been awhile. You need to ask questions about the family and your friend will fill you in on the details. Some you have met and some younger members of the family were not yet born when you last saw your friend. Switch roles and do the exercise again.
  • You have been invited to your friend’s house for dinner. When you arrive, you immediately find yourself in a room full of children. Ask each one what his/her name is and how old s/he is so that you can begin to remember all of these little ones.
  • You have invited a friend to a holiday dinner with your extended family. Introduce your friend around. Your grandmother is very interested in your friend’s family. Role play grandmother asking your friend all about his/her family.