Learn how to make questions in Egyptian Arabic
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
Intro |
|---|
| Michael: How do you ask questions in Egyptian Arabic? |
| Nora: And how is it different in Modern Standard Arabic? |
| Michael: At ArabicPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sasha is unsure about her test schedule. She asks her classmate, |
| "Do we have a test tomorrow?" |
| عَندِنا اِمتِحان بُكرَة؟ (ʿandenā emteḥān bokrah?) |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee:عَندِنا اِمتِحان بُكرَة؟ (ʿandenā emteḥān bokrah?) |
| Yomna Yaseen:أَيْوَة، عَندِنا. (ʾaywah, ʿandenā.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee:عَندِنا اِمتِحان بُكرَة؟ (ʿandenā emteḥān bokrah?) |
| Michael: "Do we have a test tomorrow?" |
| Yomna Yaseen:.أَيْوَة، عَندِنا (ʾaywah, ʿandenā.) |
| Michael: "Yes, we do." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we will be looking at how questions are made in Egyptian Arabic and how they differ from Modern Standard Arabic. Let’s start by taking a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Sasha asks, "Do we have a test tomorrow?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nora as Sasha Lee:عَندِنا اِمتِحان بُكرَة؟ (ʿandenā emteḥān bokrah?) |
| Michael: And do you remember how Sasha's classmate says "Yes, we do?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Nora as Yomna Yaseen:.أَيْوَة، عَندِنا (ʾaywah, ʿandenā.) |
| Michael: Let's examine the question. |
| Nora: عَندِنا (ʿandenā) |
| Michael: means "we have". |
| Nora: اِمتِحان (emteḥān) |
| Michael: means "exam" |
| Nora: بُكرَة؟ (bokrah?) |
| Michael: means "tomorrow." The interesting part about this question is that it is exactly the same structure as the affirmative sentence, only with a question mark at the end, or when talking, a question intonation. This is one of the beautiful things about Egyptian Arabic. It has evolved to be much more simple than Modern Standard Arabic. In the Egyptian dialect, intonation is the only difference between an affirmative sentence and a Yes/No question, so make sure to raise your intonation when pronouncing the last word in the sentence. In this case, |
| Nora: بُكرة (bokrah) |
| Michael: is crucial to make your sentence sound like a question. Now, if we want to say this as an affirmative sentence, we would say |
| Nora: عَندِنا اِمتِحان بُكرَة (ʿandenā emteḥān bokrah) |
| Michael: meaning "We have an exam tomorrow." Then, Yomna answers |
| Nora: أَيْوَة (ʾaywah) |
| Michael: meaning "yes" |
| Nora: عَندِنا (ʿandenā.) |
| Michael: meaning "we do." Understanding the structure of Yes/No questions in Egyptian Arabic opens up a world of possibilities for you with minimal effort. Let’s try to do that with some more sentences. First is |
| Nora: البيت هِناك. (el beet henak.) |
| Michael: which is an affirmative sentence meaning "The house is over there." To change this into a question, we can say |
| Nora: البيت هِناك؟ (el beet henak?) |
| Michael: meaning "Is the house over there?" So, as you can see, it’s a seamless process and the secret is in the intonation. Another example is |
| Nora: مَها راحت أَمريكا قَبل كِدَه؟ (mahā rāḥet ʾamrīkā ʾabl kedah?) |
| Michael: meaning "Did Maha go to the US before?" On the other hand, if we wanted to say that Maha went to the US before as a fact, we would say |
| Nora: مَها راحت أَمريكا قَبل كِدَه. (mahā rāḥet ʾamrīkā ʾabl kedah.) |
| Michael: Aside from Yes/No questions, open questions in Egyptian Arabic work a little similarly in the sense that word order in the sentence does not change between the question and the answer. Question words simply replace the thing in question, no matter where they are in the sentence! A common example would be: |
| Nora: بِتاكُل إيه؟ (bitākul ʾeīh?) |
| Michael: meaning "What are you eating?" The answer to the question is formed by replacing the word |
| Nora: إيه (ʾeīh) |
| Michael: meaning "what" with the thing in question, which is probably going to be the name of a dish. For example: |
| Nora: باكُل فَلافِل. (bākul falāfil.) |
| Michael: meaning "I am eating Falafel." The good news is that this structural rule applies to all open ended questions in Egyptian Arabic! |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: Now you know the very simple way you can create questions in Egyptian Arabic. There are no question words for Yes/No questions, and that intonation is the only thing we rely on. A nice thing to say before asking an important question is |
| Nora: .عَندي سُؤال (ʿandī soʾal.) |
| Michael: meaning "I have a question." This prepares the listener to closely listen to your question. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: We discussed Egyptian Arabic Yes/No questions, but what about Modern Standard Arabic? In Modern Standard Arabic, we need to add the question word |
| Nora: هَل (hal) |
| Michael: in the beginning of a sentence to create a Yes/No question. It is not as easy as Egyptian Arabic, but it still is relatively easy to do! Go ahead, ask all the questions you want! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Nora: !سلام (Salām!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
Comments
Hide