Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

In this lesson, we’ll introduce you to some more useful phrases for hotels and the like. The first phrase is “When do I pay the accommodation fee?” In Arabic, this is:
emta el daf'?
Let’s break it down:
emta el daf'?
Once more:
emta el daf'?
إمتى الدفع؟
The first word, emta, means “when” in English.
(slow) emta .
emta.
Then, el daf', which means “the pay”.
(slow) el daf'.
el daf'.
Arabic has no verb “to be” so just use 2 words, “when”, and “the pay”. Easy, isn’t it?
All together:
(slow)emta el daf'?
emta el daf'?
إمتى الدفع؟
“When do I pay the accommodation fee?”
Let’s try to ask “Can you give me some soap?” In Arabic this is:
momken sabuun?
Let’s break it down:
(slow)momken sabuun?
Once more:
momken sabuun?
ممكن صابون؟
The first word, momken, is a verb that can be translated as “can you”.
(slow) momken.
momken.
ممكن
And at the end we have sabuun which means “soap”.
(slow) sabuun.
sabuun.
صابون
Altogether it is:
(slow) momken sabuun?
momken sabuun?
ممكن صابون؟
The literal translation in English is “Is soap possible?”, which obviously does not make sense in English, but Egyptian Arabic is very minimalistic - we keep things short!
Here are some additional things you may ask for when staying in a hotel.
fuutah which means “Towel” .
(slow) fuutah.
fuutah.
فوطة
forshet senaan “Toothbrush” .
(slow) forshet senaan.
forshet senaan.
فرشة سنان
ma'guun senan “Toothpaste”.
(slow) ma'guun senaan.
ma'guun senaan.
معجون سنان
shampu “Shampoo” .
(slow) shampu.
shampu.
شامپو
In order to ask for something else, all you have to do is replace the word sabuun with any other word from those we just learned. Don’t forget to add law samaḥt at the end of the phrase to make it polite. Let’s try it with “towel”:
“Can I have a towel, please?” should sound like:
(3 sec)momken fuutah, law samaḥt?
(slow)momken fuutah, law samaḥt?
ممكن فوطة, لو سمحت؟

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