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"Already" and "rather" in Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Cetacea Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States booh.com Joined 5330 days ago 80 posts - 163 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Arabic (Yemeni), Arabic (Written) Studies: French | Message 17 of 22 02 December 2010 at 5:18am | IP Logged | ||
I second this. It's hard to translate "already" directly, but you can express the same meaning in several ways. Here are more options to the scenario: "Do the dishes", and you want to answer "But I'm already doing(washing) them." اغسلي الصحون MSA: ها أنا أغسلها الآن أو إنني أغسلها الآن Yemeni dialect uses "bain" to express the idea of NOW, so you would say: بين اغسلها ذلحين Levantine dialects use "عم" to mean the same thing: عم باغسلها "or rather" can be expressed using "لا بل". For example: جئت إلى هنا قبل 3 أشهر، لا، بل 4 أشهر I came here 3 months ago, or rather 4 months ago. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shagarah Diglot Newbie Egypt madinaharabic.com Joined 5104 days ago 4 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian)*, English | Message 18 of 22 12 December 2010 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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The translation is as follows:
أنا أتعلم العربية بالفعل بالفعل here means already, but الآن means "now" and not already. Hope it helps 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5306 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 19 of 22 13 December 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your help Shagarah, I'm a little confused about this word بالفعل since it's the first time I see it and it isn't mentioned in any of my fushaa manuals.
How should it be pronounced? "bi-lfa3l"? The construction seems weird to me as the root is "f3l" (to do) as a noun with, it seems the "bi" preposition before. Would appreciate it if you could also explain how this word is used. Just add it to any sentence to mean "already"? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5326 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 20 of 22 13 December 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
It's pronounced bi l-fi'li and it literally means "in fact," "indeed," or "actually" but it can also mean "already." It's a synonym of fi'lan (فِعْلاً). BTW, bi + noun is a common pattern for forming adverbs: wudūḥun (ٌوُضُوح) = clarity => bi-wudūḥin (ٍبوُضُوح) = clearly, explicitly sur'atun (سُرْعَةٌ) = speed => bi-sur'atin (بِسُرْعَةٍ) = speedily, hastily, quickly ʿaksun (عَكْسٌ) = reverse, contrary => bi l-ʿaksi (بِِٱلْعَكْسِ) = on the contrary 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darya0Khoshki Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5074 days ago 71 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Iraqi) Studies: Persian | Message 21 of 22 09 January 2011 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with our Yemeni friend ... in colloquial Arabic we use the word for "now" to express that we are already doing something (in Iraq it's هسه). Or you can just say for example if you want to say you are already washing the dishes: أنا اغسل المواعين! and add a lot of emphasis to the word اغسل. (That's my non-native speaker's opinion at least!) Cool thing: we also add the word for now if you want to express that you just did something, like "I just got here," would be (in Iraqi) هسه وصلت.
As far as "rather", there is the all-purpose word يعني if you want to say "kind of", "I mean", "like" etc. If you misspoke and are correctly yourself in that you can say عفو ("sorry") and then say what you meant, like this: "I've mean studying Arabic for 3 years, rather, 4 years". صار 3 سنين و اني درست عربي - عفو 4 سنين MSA of course is harder to say. قد actually means more like "has/ have" (as in "he has studied") when used with the past tense. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Monox D. I-Fly Senior Member Indonesia monoxdifly.iopc.us Joined 5141 days ago 762 posts - 664 votes Speaks: Indonesian* | Message 22 of 22 25 March 2018 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
Can someone give me an example? If I want to say "he has studied", will it be "Qad tholaba huwa"? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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