Learn how to buy and use a pre-paid telephone card in Egypt
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| While most people wouldn't or couldn't step outside without their cell phones, when you’re visiting another country, sometimes it's a little too far for your local carrier. You can of course use your cell phone when you get to Egypt, but you have to pay very expensive charges. |
| To help you out, in Egypt, you can buy prepaid phone cards for cell phones. These prepaid cell phone cards are sold in phone operator shops. |
| These include a SIM card with PIN and PUK codes and an Egyptian phone number. You can insert the SIM card into your mobile phone and use it with an Egyptian number. Simple as that! That is the focus of this lesson. |
| The Egyptian expression for prepaid cell phone line is khat mobile. This is literally translated as “mobile line”. |
| Let’s break it down. |
| khat mobile. |
| Once more: |
| khat mobile. |
| خط موبايل |
| The first word khat means “line”. |
| (slow)khat. |
| khat. |
| Next we have mobile which means “mobile” in Egyptian Arabic. |
| (slow)mobile. |
| mobile. |
| The whole expression is: |
| khat mobile. |
| Remember, it refers to a SIM card that offers you access to a prepaid service. |
| Therefore, in order to say "I want a telephone card, please" say. |
| ʿaiz khat mobile law samaḥt |
| Let’s break it down: |
| ʿaiz khat mobile law samaḥt |
| Once more: |
| ʿaiz khat mobile law samaḥt |
| عايز خط موبايل لو سمحت |
| The first word ʿaiz is translated as “I want” |
| (slow) ʿaiz. |
| ʿaiz. |
| Next we have the word khat, in English meaning “line”. |
| (slow) khat. |
| khat. |
| Altogether, we have |
| (slow) ʿaiz khat mobile law samaḥt |
| ʿaiz khat mobile law samaḥt |
| This means, “I want a mobile line, please” |
| In Egypt, there are 2 types of mobile lines, prepaid and postpaid. After buying the mobile card, you’ll pick your system, prepaid or postpaid. There isn’t a clear word for this in Arabic, so you can just use the English word for it. So you say: khat prepaid. The postpaid system is called fatoura. You don’t want that if you’re staying short term though. |
| Usually the new prepaid cell phone cards don’t have a lot of credit. If you plan on using the phone constantly, purchase a rechargeable phone card. To do this, say: |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn law samaḥt. |
| (slow) ʿaiz kart shaḥn law samaḥt. |
| ʿaiz, as we already know means “I want” |
| the word kart , means “a card” |
| (slow) kart. |
| kart. |
| Next we have the word “shaḥn”, meaning “recharging”. |
| (slow) shaḥn. |
| shaḥn. |
| At the end we have law samaḥt, meaning “please”. |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn law samaḥt. |
| عايز كارت شحن لو سمحت |
| “A rechargeable phone card please”. |
| You need to specify which mobile network you belong to in Egypt. So after “kart shaḥn” you should say your mobile carrier name; Vodafone, Etisalat, or Mobinil. |
| Let’s use Vodafone for this example: |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn Vodafone law samaḥt |
| The shopkeeper will probably ask you “bkam?” meaning “How much?” referring to the amount you want to recharge with. |
| bkam? |
| بكام؟ |
| In that case you should just say the amount you want to recharge with. 10 pounds for example: |
| ‘ashara geneeh |
| عشرة جنيه |
| If you want to keep it short, just tell the shopkeeper how much you want from the beginning. Let’s imagine you want to recharge your account with 10 pounds. In this case, add to the phrase we just learned the expression “b ‘ashara geneeh”. |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn b ‘ashara geneeh law samaḥt. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn b ‘ashara geneeh law samaḥt. |
| Once again: |
| ʿaiz kart shaḥn b ‘ashara geneeh law samaḥt. |
| عايز كارت شحن بعشرة جنيه لو سمحت |
| b ‘ashara geneeh is literally translated as “by 10 pounds”. |
| (slow) b ‘ashara geneeh |
| b ‘ashara geneeh |
| Here’s the entire sentence: |
| aiz kart shaḥn b ‘ashara geneeh law samaḥt. |
| This means, “A 10 pound rechargeable card, please.” |
| Review the numbers lesson so you can make sentences with different values of recharging cards. |
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