Some time ago a friend of mine on Twitter told me that she’s enjoyed this blog but never realized that I was the person who had written it, and said she wished I kept it more active. I explained that these language posts are time-consuming for me and I’ve just had a hard time finding the time apart from my regular writing to work on them. But then I realized, they don’t really have to be that time-consuming, do they? I don’t have to talk about grammar and context and all the other stuff that bogs me down when I write them, at least not all the time. Sometimes a list of vocabulary is good enough. So here’s some basic vocabulary about the various ways people get around:

• car: سيارة (sayārah), عربة (ʿarabah)
• truck: شاحنة (shāḥinah), meaning something capable of carrying freight
  
• motorcycle: دراجة نارية (darrājah nārīyah)
  
• bus: حافلة (ḥāfilah), باص (bāṣ), أوتوبيس (ūtūbīs)
  
• train: قطار (qiṭār), قطر (qaṭr, Egypt)
  
• plane: طائرة (ṭāʾirah), you might also encounter طيارة (ṭayārah)
  
• boat: سفينة (safīnah), مركب (markib, Egypt), قارب (qārib)
  
• ship: سفينة (safīnah)
  
• ferry: عبارة (ʿabārah) or معبر (maʿbar)
• bicycle: دراجة (darrājah), also cognates like بيسيكليت (bīsīklīt)
• taxi: there is an Arabic translation for this, but I think you might get chuckled at if you use anything other than “taxi,” تاكسي
• walking (verb): مشى (mashá)
  • “a walk”: مشي (mashī) or نزهة (nuzhah); the latter is more like “stroll”
• running (verb): ركض (rakaḍa)
  • “a run”: ركضة (rakḍah)