Mama Lisa's World
International Music & Culture
A place for poems, songs, rhymes and traditions from around the world for both kids and grown-ups to enjoy!
Mexican Kid Songs & Rhymes
A Book & App..
Over 80 Mexican children's songs and rhymes, with translations and commentary. An iPhone/iPad App or Book starting at just $1.99! More...
Articles about 'Arabic'
Mama Lisa Home Image
Open Culture has a page of free language learning links covering 40 languages. Here are some of the languages you can find links for… Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili,...
We received two recordings of Arabic rhymes from Morocco.  We need help with the original lyrics and/or their translations.  It seems the first one has "bgra" (cow) in it. Here are the recordings: Arabic Rhyme 1 Arabic Rhyme 2 If anyone can help with the original Arabic text and/or translations of the rhymes, please comment below. Thanks in advance! Mama Lisa
The expression Like a Bull in a China Shop literally refers to a lumbering, clumsy person damaging things… imagine someone stumbling around a shop full of delicate items, flailing, knocking things over and breaking them. That’s what you’d think would happen of you let a bull loose in a real china shop. Wouldn’t...
Advertisement
Cross Cultural Poetics has podcasts featuring modern poets from different countries around the world. The first podcast features Egyptian poets Mohamed Metwalli and Maged Zaher and Chinese poet Zhang Er. They compare Chinese and Arabic poetry to English poetry. Zhang Er points out that Chinese poetry has no tense – so it has an eternal feeling to...
Mama Lisa Home Image
Mourad Bendjennet sent us information about a new way of transliterating Arabic that has come about since the advent of computers. Here we’re talking specifically about transliterating Arabic by writing the language in the Roman alphabet to show how to pronounce it in English… “With the introduction of computers and text messages among Arabs, they...
Jennie sent me some Moroccan lullabies and songs today with this note… Dear Mama Lisa! I came across your website today after doing a Google search looking for children’s songs and lullabies from Morocco… Recently I just moved to Morocco, with my baby, and was interested in learning some songs. I have picked up a few songs while...
Rondi wrote to me… Hello Lisa! This is Rondi Charleston – I am a singer/songwriter in the NY area. I have an important recording project coming up in which I need an Arabic Lullaby to incorporate into an original song. I’m searching for the MELODY! Sheet music? or an MP3? I...
I’ve been asked twice in the past week for free multilingual books. Here’s a link I found called Books in Multiple Languages. They have English children’s books with translations in Spanish, French, Polish, Italian, Romanian, German, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, Maori, Greek, Dutch, Farsi (Persian), Afrikaans, Croatian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew,...
This year Eid al-Adha (a holiday that’s also known as Eid Kbir) is held on the 18th to the 20th around the Muslim world. It’s a festival celebrating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for Allah. Everyone dresses up and goes to the mosque to perform the Eid prayer. Families that can...
Mama Lisa Home Image
This week we were fortunate enough to receive recordings of four Arabic songs from Lebanon. I’m posting one of the songs below for you to hear. Here’s Tic Tic Tic Sleiman’s Mother in Arabic, with an English translation and the transliteration, so you can listen along to hear how to pronounce it. If you’d...
Michele wrote me: Hello, My Mom’s side of the family is part Lebanese and I grew up hearing a song about petting a cat and then it tries to grab some meat and gets smacked. Something like “beese, beese, yup si na, kinthee lahama wisheena, ibbis”. Sound familiar? Thanks, Michele If anyone can help with this song, please comment below...
If you’re trying to learn a new language, I’d recommend checking out LanguageGuide.org. Users visit different theme related pages (i.e. about insects, the family, the farm). Each page has images related to the theme. You place your cursor over the images and hear their names pronounced and see them spelled out in...
Mama Lisa Facebook Badge
Mama Lisa Twitter Badge
Mama Lisa Pinterest Badge

Help Support Mama Lisa's World
with just
$1.99


Help Support Mama Lisa's World
with just
$1.99