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"Already" and "rather" in Arabic

  Tags: Arabic
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages Post Reply
22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
Cetacea
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booh.com
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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 
Doitsujin wrote:
IMHO, the only way to express that you already study Arabic would be to add some emphatic particle at the beginning of the sentence and the actual time at the end.


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.
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shagarah
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madinaharabic.com
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 Message 18 of 22
12 December 2010 at 2:50pm | IP Logged 
The translation is as follows:

أنا أتعلم العربية بالفعل

بالفعل here means already, but الآن means "now" and not already.

Hope it helps
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Mikael84
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 Message 19 of 22
13 December 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
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"?
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Doitsujin
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 Message 20 of 22
13 December 2010 at 9:45am | IP Logged 
Mikael84 wrote:
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.

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


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Darya0Khoshki
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 Message 21 of 22
09 January 2011 at 4:47am | IP Logged 
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.
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Monox D. I-Fly
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Indonesia
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 Message 22 of 22
25 March 2018 at 4:01am | IP Logged 
Darya0Khoshki wrote:

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.


Can someone give me an example? If I want to say "he has studied", will it be "Qad tholaba huwa"?


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