Does anyone here speak Arabic?

[election_2004]

I'm currently writing a Sliders fanfiction, and the setting for my story is an alternate universe where Ancient Persia colonized the North American continent.

While the majority of my story is written in English, I do want to throw in various words, phrases, and sentences in Arabic throughout the text.

The problem is that I haven't been able to find any online resources that translate English into Arabic. All of the sources I've seen (including Ajeeb) translate words into Arabic characters. However, I need the phonetic Arabic translations, since I'm using a keyboard to type my story that has alphanumerical characters solely in English. Therefore, characters from the Arabic alphabet don't help me at all.

Does anyone here speak Arabic, or know someone else who does, and would be willing to help me with the translations for my story? I only have about 20-30 words (including phrases or whole sentences) that I need to get translated from English into Arabic.

I cannot release my story online until I find a way to get these translations done.

Please PM me if you can help, as I'm sure this thread will inevitably be buried by others.

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!

[Placebo]

1. I would LOVE to learn!

I think it's a beautiful sounding language :)

[hobbit709]

2. Arabic

Actually in Persia(Iran) they speak Farsi

[Crunchy Frog]

3. One of the volunteers in my precinct

is Lebanese and teaches Arabic. I've been meaning to try to hook them up with DU.

That wouldn't help you with your fanfic though since Persian (Farsi) is completely unrelated to Arabic. I don't currently know any Persian speakers.

[election_2004]

5. Even though it's not accurate...

Arabic would be better than nothing.

It would be pretty lame if I just italicized the English words and phrases, as though the characters were just assumed to be speaking a different language.

Is there any way you could ask your friend if he/she would be willing to help me with the translations?

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. If you're going for accuracy you don't want Arabic.

The Persians weren't (and aren't) Arabs, and the language you want is Old Persian (although Farsi would do, since it's the modern descendant). Unlike Arabic, Old Persian and Farsi are Indo-European languages; Arabic is Semitic and belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family.

[election_2004]

6. Does anyone know someone who speaks Farsi?

I have a lot of readers waiting for this story, and they'll just keep waiting until I can get the translations done.

[ze_dscherman]

7. Why don't you check some Iranian websites?

There should a lot of Iranians that could translate English to Farsi.

This could be a good starting point for your search: http://directory.google.com/Top/Regional/Middle_East/Iran/

Good luck!