Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
In this lesson, we’ll cover an extremely important phrase: “Where is the bathroom?”.
GRAMMAR POINT
In Egyptian Arabic, “Where is the bathroom?” is:
feen el ḥammām? Most of the time, this expression is used when you are invited to someone’s home.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) feen el ḥammām?
Once more:
feen el ḥammām?
فين الحمام؟
The first word, feen, means “where”.
(slow) feen
feen
The next words, el ḥammām, mean “the bathroom.”
(slow) el ḥammām.
el ḥammām.
Let’s hear the whole question one more time.
(slow) feen el ḥammām?
feen el ḥammām?
You can also say “toilet” in English instead of ḥammām.
(slow) toilet
toilet
It will be:
feen el toilet?
(slow) feen el toilet?
feen el toilet?
فين التويليت؟
If you are looking for the ladies’ room, just take the phrase we just learned feen el ḥammām? remove the el and add this at the end - el settaat. It will sound like this:
feen ḥammām el settaat?
Let’s break it down:
(slow) feen ḥammām el settaat?
Once more:
feen ḥammām el settaat?
فين حمام الستات؟
el-settaat can be translated as “the women”.
(slow) el settaat.
el settat.
Let’s repeat the whole question.
(slow) feen ḥammām el settaat?
feen ḥammām el settaat?
فين حمام الستات؟
If you are looking for the men’s room, just replace the word settaat which means “women” with reggaala which means “men”.
feen ḥammām el reggaala?
Let’s break it down:
(slow) feen ḥammām el reggaala?
Once more:
feen ḥammām el reggaala?
فين حمام الرجالة؟
reggaala means “men”.
(slow) reggaala
reggaala
Let’s hear it one more time:
(slow) feen ḥammām el reggaala?
feen ḥammām el reggaala?
Let’s hear both of the sentences one more time:
feen ḥammām el settaat?
feen ḥammām el reggaala?
In Egypt, it may not always be easy to find a toilet. If you are on the street especially, you will definitely want to ask: “Where is the nearest toilet?” In Egyptian Arabic that is translated as:
feen ‘a’rab ḥammām?
Let’s break it down:
(slow) feen ‘a’rab ḥammām?
Once more:
feen ‘a’rab ḥammām?
فين أقرب حمام؟
The new word in this sentence is ‘a’rab translated in English as “the nearest”.
(slow) ‘a’rab
‘a’rab
Let’s hear the whole sentence again.
feen ‘a’rab ḥammām?

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