Arabic Expressions

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
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I will use this thread to add some commonly used arabic expressions, how they are pronounced and their meaning and maybe a little note as a comment on it, hope it finds your interest.

Starting with Common Hello Words

Word:

Salamo Alaikom : means Peace be upon you,

pronunciation: As-Salāmu `Alaykum

As-Salāmu `alayk(a) —Peace be upon you (m. sing.)

As-Salāmu `alayk(i) —Peace be upon you (f. sing)

As-Salāmu `alayk(umā) —Peace be upon you (to two people of any gender)

As-Salāmu `alayk(unna) —Peace be upon you (f. plural - to three or more females only)

As-Salāmu `alayk(umu) —Peace be upon you (To a group of three or more people, where at least one is a male - or for respect to a single person)

Written in arabic:

السلام عليكم

Listen to it

Description:

and its exact writing (high arabic let us say) is Assalamu Alaikom , and the very formal way of it is Assalamu Alaikom wa Rahamato Allahi wa barakatoh , which means peace be upon you and God's mercies and blessings.

Comment:

This is the most common hello word in the arab world, it is like hello, hi, hey and all such stuff - even some when they answer the phone they start by saying salamo alaikom.

Some just say salam when they are saying byebye.

When you are told Assalamu Alaikom, you answer - Wa Alaikom El Salam , which means and peace be upon you too as if you are wishing the same to the caller.

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Hi misr - interesting thread. I would be interested to learn some phrases in Arabic. Would you be able to indicate the stress (strong syllable) in the words too, please? Thanks!

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And the opposite?

What if I don't choose to wish peace, but war and hell? Does peace have to be upon everyone?

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I have edited the original post based upon your request, luckily I also found a video that can help you to practise, if that is fine I will try to do it for all the upcoming posts.

More comments are highly appreciated - hope this thread will be helpful to all.

5
Thanks for this thread - it reminded me of home, living as a non-Muslim with numerous Muslim associates.

We pronounce it with a slight variation.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...776&sec=nation

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Thank you for your comment, sadly I don't know what to answer - because I am not sure about the reason for the question.

If you have something against arabs so I apologize on behalf of those who bothered you.

Ideally (which is not a must to be the case that all arabs follow) when you are greeted in a way, you have to answer in a better way - this is the common Arabic culture / belief / religion.

If you have more comments on that issue, I kindly ask you to do it via PM so we keep this thread for what is made for.

Assalum Alaikom to you

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No, I have nothing against, just wondering of alternatives or opposing phrases to wishing peace. Not that I am against peace, just feel somethings if said too much lose value.

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Agree...too much of your postings make it loose value. Therefore I kindly ask you to restrain from posting and keep value for yourself.

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nice idea, misr. I tried to learn arabic a couple of years ago but I was living too far away from a language school that offered it so I had to give up after 6 months

I'm in love with the alphabet and the calligraphy, especially. I feel I wouldn't be able to really learn it though, without the practice one has living in a country where it is spoken. but I find it a really nice idea to learn at least some phrase, I'll be sure to follow your language post

one question: the video you posted, is the pronunciation of the phrase "high" arabic or of some particular country?

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if I may answer,

It is a high Arabic but with a bit of gulf accent (those who live in Saudi Arabia and Emirates) , I did not find a pure assalamu-alaikom pronounced in youtube so far, but this video has the word salam pronounced frequently, this is typical high arabic.

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thank you mashy. this thread is making me want to start learning arabic again. who knows, certainly here in zurich I would have better access to language courses.

I know that when I was doing my first course the thing about the dialects put me off a bit because I was thinking: ok, what if after I've made all the effort to learn high arabic I travel to say Syria or Egypt and don't understand a word in a shop or in the street? you can't expect people on the street to speak high arabic, if I understood this correctly.

or will they make an effort with a foreigner? (doesn't this remind me of switzerland? )

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When we speak about Switzerland it is a lot of dialects in one country, when we speak about arab countries they are independent 22 countries - so I assume it is different from Switzerland

However all arabs understand each other, and I believe they are too friendly, and they may even answer you in English if you don't understand their dialect

If you are learning, I suggest keep on the high Arabic let us say - this will help you to communicate with around 150 million person and even more - if you are not going to use Arabic, then possibly save your effort and as you said just get some expressions out of it would be enough and interesting as well.

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yes, I know, in Tunisia everybody was enthusiastic about my couple of arabic phrases (all forgotten now, I'm afraid...) and where helping me in all sorts of ways...

it was better than my french anyway

I even bought some lovely children's books to see if I could at least read one of them and I found a primary teacher in the Tunis kasbah who read it out aloud for me on the doorstep of her home, a wonderful experience for my whole family!

the other day I was watching an arabic film with my daughter and was positively surprised when she said: "mum, let's watch it in arabic!" with subtitles, of course, but still, we really picked out the place names and some words like hello or the arabic for "sugar" or other words which we have from arabic.

that was palestianian dialect, no idea where that should be placed ont he arabic language map...

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I would say usually. My husband is Lebanese, and a native speaker. However, when we traveled together to Egypt when we were still dating, he was asked to please speak English--at least one local could not understand a word he said!

I know a number of Arabic phrases myself. Unfortunately most of them are NSFW.

15
What is the correct expression for: "How much gold will you transfer to my account in case we buy your Typhoon fighters ...?"

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I think it's terrible to belittle Muslims and suggest they are all war-raging terrorists.

Sorry, it's not really as funny as you might have thought when you clicked submit. I found this threat to be informative.

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hhmm, guys, I thought this thread was about language, eventually a bit of culture and local customs, certainly not about religion politics, or aeronautical engineering.

because in that case I'm not interested.

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Did you mean "thread" ? Although "threat" almost works as well....

( I tried to PM you with this, but.....)

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I quite enjoy watching the videos that Maha does on youtube.

Not just because she is hot.......although that is a major factor.

Her channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnArabicwithMaha

cheers

SC

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I thought this was about Arabic. Not all Arabic speakers are Muslim.