Learn how to ask an Egyptian person for help
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| INTRODUCTION |
| In this lesson we’ll introduce the directions that will help you find the place you are looking for. Previously, we introduced “Is there a (place) near here?” and “Where is …(something)?”. But while we can now ask, we haven’t talked about how to understand the answer. This time we’re going to work on understanding what someone tells us. And we’ll go over basic directions. First, we have “go straight.” |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| In Egyptian Arabic , “go straight” is |
| Emshi ʿala ṭol. |
| امشي على طول |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) .Emshi_ʿalā ṭol |
| Once more: |
| Emshi ʿalā ṭol . |
| The first word,Emshi, is the order form of the verb that means “to walk”. |
| (slow) Emshi. |
| Emshi. |
| And the second word,ʿalā ṭol,can be translated as “straight” |
| (slow) ʿalā ṭol |
| ʿalā ṭol |
| Together, they make |
| Emshi ʿala ṭol. |
| If you want to make the phrase sound more politely, say: |
| law samaht,Emshi ʿala ṭol. |
| لو سمحت امشي على طول |
| please, go straight |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) law-sama-hat-Emshi-ʿala-ṭol. |
| Once more: |
| law samahat, Emshi ʿala ṭol. |
| ・ |
| Here’s how to tell someone to take a left. |
| ḫush shimaal. |
| خش شمال |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) ḫush-shimaal. |
| Once more: |
| ḫush shimaal. |
| The first word, ḫush is translated as “get in” |
| (slow) ḫush |
| ḫush |
| خش |
| The next word shimaal means “to the left” |
| (slow) shimaal.. |
| shimaal |
| شمال |
| Together, they make |
| ḫush shimaal |
| If you want to make this more polite, you can say |
| law samaht,ḫush shimaal. |
| (slow) law-samaht-ḫush-shimaal |
| law-samaht-ḫush-shimaal. |
| ・ |
| The opposite, “take a right” in Egyptian Arabic is |
| . |
| (slow) ḫush yimiin . |
| ḫush yimiin. |
| خش يمين |
| As you’ve probably figured out, yimiin means “the right.” |
| (slow) yi-miin. |
| yimiin. |
| And the polite form of this phrase is: |
| law samaht,ḫush yimiin. |
| (slow) law-samaht-ḫush-yimiin. |
| law samaht, ḫush yimiin. |
| لو سمحت خش يمين |
| ・ |
| In real life, of course, you’ll need to know where to turn left or right. |
| Here’s “Turn right at the traffic light”: |
| ḫush yimiin ʿind el ishara |
| خش يمين عند الاشارة |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) ḫush-yimiin-ʿand-el-ishara. |
| Again at natural speed: |
| ḫush yimiin ʿand el ishara. |
| el ishara means “traffic light.” In our sentence we haveʿand el ishara., which is translated as “at the traffic light” |
| (slow) ʿand el ishara. |
| ʿand el ishara. |
| عند الاشارة |
| Then we have ḫush yimiin , which we know means “turn right”. |
| All together, it’s |
| ḫush yimiin ʿind al ishara. |
| We can also use the polite version if we put, law samaht,in the beginning. That we learned before. |
| law samaht, ḫush yimiin ʿand el ishara. |
| (slow) law-samaht-ḫush-yimiin-ʿand-el ishara |
| law samaht,ḫush yimiin ʿand el ishara. |
| ・ |
| Another way of explaining direction can be: “first intersection on the right”. In Egyptian Arabic that is |
| ʾawel taqaṭuʿ yimiin. |
| (slow)ʾawel-taqa-ṭuʿ -yimiin. |
| ʾawel taqaṭuʿ yimiin. |
| In this expression ʾawel means “first”. |
| (slow) ʾa-wel. |
| ʾawel. |
| Next we have taqaṭuʿ which means “intersection”. |
| (slow) taqa-ṭuʿ . |
| taqaṭuʿ . |
| ・ |
| Here’s how to say “on the right”: |
| yimiin. |
| (slow) yimiin. |
| yimiin. |
| And “on the left” is shimaal. |
| (slow) Shimaal. |
| Shimaal. |
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