ARABIC LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION 1

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

1) Knowledge and comprehension

The course aims to provide students with a basic knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic, which mainly consists of being able to write, read and vocalise short texts in Standard Arabic, knowing the fundamental morphological aspects, the main syntactic structures, as well as the basic vocabulary of Standard Arabic related to communicative situations typical of the basic level of the language. Students should also know how to use the Arabic dictionary and know the main aspects of the history of the Arabic language.

 

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding

In addition to being able to recognise and apply the basic grammatical rules of Standard Arabic and to be able to translate sentences from Arabic into Italian and from Italian into Arabic, students should be able to read, listen, understand and produce short oral and written texts on familiar topics and to interact in Arabic in the context of the communicative situations indicated in the syllabus.

 

3) Autonomy of judgement

By the end of the course, students are expected to develop adequate autonomy of judgement in recognising and applying the knowledge they have learnt in correct communicative situations.

 

4) Communicative skills

Students should be able to communicate effectively using the tools learnt during the course (everyday expressions and basic phrases that meet needs of a concrete type; introducing oneself and others; talking and asking questions about home, one's home town, people one knows, etc.), and to interact in a simple manner.

 

5) Learning skills

By the end of the course, students should have enhanced the five language skills in order to be able to enter the next course and continue learning the language.

Lectures.

None

• Phonology and orthography;
• Rules for writing of hamza;
• Root and form;
• Parts of speech: ism, fi‘l, harf;
• The name;
• Triptote and diptote declination;
• Ab and akh;
• Article and tanwin;
• Solar and lunar letters;
• Main prepositions and adverbs;
• Gender and number;
• Formation of feminine;
• Formation of dual;
• Formation of regular feminine and masculine plural;
• Broken plurals;
• Adjectives and concordance rules;
• Personal isolated and pronoun suffixes;
• Idafa;
• The nominal sentence;
• Interrogative sentence;
• Ways of translating the verb ‘to have’;
• Demonstrative adjectives/pronouns;
• The verb;
• The verbal sentence;
• Classification of Arabic verbs;
• Conjugation of the madi of triliteral regular verbs;
• Conjugation and use of mudari‘ (marfu‘, mansub, majzum);
• Ways of expressing future tense.
• Imperative;
• Negations;
• The verbs kana and laysa;
• Participles and masdars;
• Derived verb forms (II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X) of regular triliteral verbs and paradigms;
• Function of alladhi and allati as a subject;
• Indefinite adjectives/pronouns;
• Cardinal and ordinal numbers from 1 to 10.

Lexicon

Greetings; house; family; daily life; food; work; weather; city/hometown.

Manuals and grammars

- Luc-Willy Deheuvels (ed. italiana a cura di A. Ghersetti), Grammatica araba. Manuale di arabo moderno, Zanichelli, Bologna, 2010, vol. 1 (pp. 13-140).

- G. Mion, La lingua araba, Carocci, Roma, 2007 (144 pp.).

Suggested textbooks:

- L. Veccia Vaglieri, Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba - vol. 1 (271 pp.), Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino, Roma (II edizione).

- M. Ruocco, A. de Benedettis, Introduzione alla scrittura araba, Hoepli, Milano, 2019 (160 pp.).

Dictionaries:

- Traini R. (a cura di), Vocabolario Arabo-Italiano, Roma, Istituto per l’Oriente;

- E. Baldissera, Dizionario compatto Italiano-Arabo, Arabo-Italiano, Zanichelli.

During the classes, additional material will be provided and it will be available on Studium.

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.