This book is a companion book to marHaba II. Due to the popular demand from numerous readers and students, especially those who are independent and highly motivated, self-taught learners, I have agreed to publish this book which contains the English translation and transliteration for every one of the 28 lessons in marHaba II. In the transliteration section, although written in Roman letters, I did not observe the protocol of capitalization of words; instead, and as expected, I followed the transliteration code and practice to highlight the different letters of the Arabic alphabet that are listed in the "Legend" and that have no exact equivalent in English. In translating the lessons, I tried to be literal, true to the original meaning, unless the wording totally made no sense in English. In a case like this, I translated the gist of the meaning, the spirit of the content, while providing the individual literal meaning of key words in the vocabulary list of every lesson which is included in the actual textbook. Hence, these English lessons (texts) are here to facilitate the understanding of the original Arabic lessons and should not be treated as independent literary lessons in their own right. I guess the same can be said about the transliterated portion of this book. Furthermore, please note that in dialect, much more than in MSA, popular sayings, idioms, and proverbs are naturally embedded in the colloquial speech and are freely used by the native population because they are closer to people's lives, daily experience, and more expressive of their heartfelt feelings and emotions. In translating such popular expressions, you cannot be literal; instead, the gist and the intended meaning should be conveyed.
About the Author: George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D. is a Lebanese-American poet, professor, linguist, administrator and writer. He was born in Mansourieh El-Metn, Lebanon in 1952. His father was Nicolas Iskandar El-Hage and his mother was Martha Abounader El-Hage. Dr. El-Hage completed his elementary and secondary school education in Lebanon. He acquired his B.A. in Arabic Literature from the Lebanese University in Beirut, Lebanon. While in Beirut, El-Hage studied with and was influenced by poets like Buland al-Haidari and Khalil Hawi. He then emigrated to the United States where he completed both his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Arabic and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York in Binghamton. His dissertation (later published into a book by NDU Press, Lebanon) was on William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision. He has taught at Yale University, Binghamton University, The Lebanese University, Columbia University, the Monterey Institute of International Studies (a graduate school of Middlebury College) and the Defense Language Institute. His academic career has been equally spent between teaching, authoring, lecturing and administration. Dr. El-Hage is a prolific writer with a perfect command of both English and Arabic languages. His training and expertise in the field of Arabic and Comparative Literature has enabled him to delve into a wide range of topics and areas covering Literature, mythology, mysticism, language acquisition, criticism, theology and art. He is a published poet in Arabic, both in Modern Standard and in spoken Levantine Dialect as well as in Lebanese Zajal. He also writes poetry in English and is an accomplished translator. Dr. El-Hage has published seven volumes of poetry, numerous research articles, books on language pedagogy and poetry in Lebanese Dialect and Zajal. His poetry betrays a marked fluctuation between a deep romantic sensitivity and a tragic existential awareness which colors his reading of current universal and regional events. The tragedy of his embattled country constitutes a dominant theme in his writings. El-Hage is a supporter of the free verse movement in Modern Arabic Poetry. Nevertheless, he still appreciates the Qasida 'Amudiyya, the classical form of traditional Arabic Poetry. He always chooses short meters, and his poetry is characterized by its musical effects. Many of Dr. El-Hage's books are available on www.amazon.com.