Hello and welcome to the ‘tester release’ of the uniquely original ‘Thinker Cards’ for Egyptian Arabic

vocabulary!
The cards are designed to get you to work out the vocabulary for yourself, whilst internalising the two key
principals of Arabic: roots and patterns!

The front side of the cards features a word representing a pattern, and gives other 3-consonant root sets
which can be inserted into the pattern to find new words!
The reverse side of the cards takes the roots from the featured word, and presents patterns into which it can
be inserted in order to find new words! (https://youtu.be/VDM7BOS2OEA)

The cards are not tools for memorisation, but for thinking! Memory and improved assimilation of new
vocabulary generally, will come as a natural result of this thinking whereas a heavy focus on memorisation
will mean losing out on the bigger picture. So do take your time to think about the patterns and roots at hand,
and to enjoy this panoramic view of Arabic!

Ps. With the reverse sides, always take a moment to look at the type of words which a root set gives us…
apart from being fascinating how Arabic divides up and connects meanings with the root system, thinking
about this helps us learn too!

Enjoy!

Important information:

This is a ‘testing release’, meaning that there will almost certainly still be some problematic areas on
the cards.

Learners of Egyptian Arabic are invited to use the cards and to contribute to their proofing so that an updated
digital and printed release can be made soon! Learners can seek feedback from native speakers they
practice with, or indeed from their Arabic teachers. Why not bring your cards for discussion with your tutor,
and pass on any corrections to LT!?

Further checks are still necessary to:

-analyse the English translations offered and see if better ones might fit.

-remove words which are not Egyptian Arabic (or MSA words regularly used in Egyptian due to the lack of a
native word).

-make sure the transliterations are correct and consistent.

-sieve out any incoherencies/errors on the cards.

-sieve out inconsistencies with the key described below (for example not providing ‘pattern plurals’ on the
reverse sides).

When enough feedback has been received, the cards will be available as hardcopies in donation packs
(https://www.languagetransfer.org/donation-packs), as well as donated to libraries and available freely for
d i g i t a l u s e ( h o p e f u l l y c o i n c i d i n g w i t h t h e r e l e a s e o f a n LT a p p ! ) . F E E D B A C K TO :
INFO@LANGUAGETRANSFER.ORG

Key:

SOUNDS:
Consonants with a line underneath (_) represent emphatic consonants, such as the ’S’ which is closer to the
sound in ‘sorry’, or the ’T’ like the one in ‘tar’ or the ‘H’ of ‘Harry’, to give some examples.

Letters with a hat (∨) above them, would usually otherwise require two letters to be transcribed. ’S’ with ‘∨’
above it gives us /sh/ as in ‘shoe’, ‘H’ with ‘∨’ is /kh/ as in ‘loch’ or ‘Bach’, ‘g’ with ‘∨’ above is /gh/ (as in the
gargling sound)!

(Q) (in brackets) should appear when it is very common or imperative to pronounce the word replacing the
Qaf with Hamza.

‘ represents Hamza (a written Hamza rather than a silent Qaf).

‘Ain’ is written like the Arabic letter (like a reversed ‘3’).

In this way, the cards employ a consistent one-letter-per-sound system to transcribe Arabic, and so ‘sh’ for
example, should not be confused with the sound of ‘shoe’, as it always represents ’s’ and ‘h’ as two separate
sounds, ‘gh’ should not be confused with the ‘gargling g’, ‘gh’ is always just a ‘g’ and a ‘h’ standing side by
side.

WORD TYPE:

-Words with ‘to’ before them indicate a verb. Verbs are only included on the reverse sides of the cards in this
set, which focuses on adjectives and nouns.

-If there can be a doubt regarding the word type, it is clarified with ’N’ for nouns (words we can put ‘the’ in
front of), or ‘ADJ’ for adjectives (describing words which can have ‘is/am’ before them).

-Nouns describing actions like ‘swimming’ in ‘swimming is cool’ should not be confused with ‘verbal-
adjectives’ (those adjectives we use like verbs such as raayih {going}), which are marked as ‘VA’.

-When two patterns are presented one below the other, they indicate (top to bottom) present & past in the
case of verbs, and singular & plural, in the case of nouns. When no second form is given, the present/past
verb bases are the same, and in the case of nouns, the plural is formed without a pattern (with -iin/aat).