Hi everyone!

For today I’ve transcribed a scene from غدا نلتقي ghadan naltaqi, a Ramadan series from 2015 that follows a group of Syrians living in an abandoned building in Beirut. In it we see Abu Abdo – the excitable patriarch of a traditional working-class family – bombarding his wife and children with information and speculation about possible refugee destinations. If you were already following Team Maha back in 2016, you might remember this video. But I’ve re-transcribed it and uploaded it with optional Arabic subtitles so you can follow the words as they’re being spoken. I hope you enjoy it!

 

 

سمعتي يا ام عبدو؟ قال بالسويد عم يدفعو1500 دولار بالشهر للنفر
smi3ti yaa 2imm 3abdo? 2aal bissweed 3am yidfa3u 2alf w khames miit dolaar bishshaher linnafar
Did you hear that, Umm Abdo? Apparently in Sweden they’re paying 1500 dollars a month per person!

إم عبدو – it’s not uncommon to address your spouse with 2imm X or 2abu X (with X of course being the name of the oldest male child).

قال – probably the invariable usage here I discussed in this post, meaning ‘apparently’ (and not ‘he said’).

1500 – similar to the fuS7a way of reading this number, but note that the counting form of miyye ‘100’ is pronounced miit.

بالشهر – ‘per month’. بالـ bil- is the normal way of expressing ‘per’, with the definite article.

للنفر – ‘per individual’. Perhaps because this is a fuS7aism (نفر), he pronounces لـ with a li-, rather than la- as is more common.

هادا عدا العلاج
haada 3ada l3ilaaj
And that’s without mentioning the medical care!

هادا عدا – literally ‘this is not including’, ‘this is excepting’. هادا here serves a similar purpose to ‘that’ in the English translation: ‘these things I’ve just said/mentioned’.

يعني من قلع الضرس للقلب المفتوح لا سمح الله
ya3ni min 2al3 iDDares lal2alb ilmaftuu7 laa same7 2aLLaa
Everything’s covered. From tooth extractions to open heart surgery, God forbid!

من قلع الضرس للقلب المفتوح – ‘from tooth extraction to open heart [surgery]. Note it’s all definite where in English there is no article.

لا سمح الله – basically the same as its English translation (literally ‘let God not permit’) but used more frequently.

وهادا كلو غير البيت.
w haada killo gheer ilbeet!
And there’s the house, too!

وهادا كلو غير ‘and all this is except for’. Same sort of structure as above.

شو بيت؟ يا حبيبي! قولي قصر!
shuu beet? yaa 7abiibi! 2uuli 2aSer!
I say house, but my God! It’s more like a palace!

شو بيت؟ – you can put شو before almost anything to mean ‘what do you mean X’. Here, of course, the question is rhetorical.

يا حبيبي – an exclamation

قولي قصر – literally ‘say a palace’. The meaning here is something like ‘you should call it a palace’.

شفتو ع الموبايل! قصر! قصر العادة!
shifto 3almobaayl! 2aSer! 2aSr il3aade!
I saw it on the phone. It was a palace! A real palace!

قصر العادة – an 2iDaafe construction with il3aade gives a meaning a bit like ‘the proverbial X’ or ‘a veritable X’. This doesn’t seem to be an acceptable fuS7a construction but is probably linked to the Turkish adeta.

شلون الفيلا تبع أبو عماد بزمانو؟ متلها تمام
shloon ilvilla taba3 2abu 3imaad bi-zamaano? mitla tamaam
Do you remember Abu Imad’s mansion back in the day? Exactly like that!

شلون… متلها – this sort of question-like structure (and note that his intonation is not a normal question intonation) is very common, as are similar structures with وين ween ‘where’ when saying where something is. The point is just to introduce a comparison.

الفيلا تبع أبو عماد- taba3 stands in for a normal 2iDaafe here, perhaps because فيلا is a loanword. A فيلا is not quite the same as a villa. It refers to a big and luxurious house of a kind common in lots of Arabic-speaking countries.

تمام – ‘exactly’ this could also be تماما tamaaman. 

لك انت مفكر حالك إنو شو هي طنجرة شو هاي طنجرة ألومينوعم تنضفها؟ ها؟
lak 2inte mfakker 7aalak 2inno shuu hayy Tanjart 2alumiino 3am itnaDDifha? haa?
You think that’s an aluminium pan you’re scrubbing away at there? Eh?

لك – this is a (sometimes aggressive) ‘attention grabber’. It doesn’t change for gender, and suggests that what you’re about to say has some dramatic or urgent character to it. Here Abu Abdo (until now so keen on his subject that he hasn’t even noticed) is about to point out to his son that he’s been scrubbing away at his hand.

مفكر حالك إنو شو هاي طنجرة ألومينو عم تنضفها؟ – the syntax here is a bit complicated and involves a lot of ‘scrambling‘ (moving elements around for emphasis and other purposes). The basic sentences are مفكر حالك عم تنضف طنجرة ألومينو ‘do you think you’re washing up an aluminium pan?’ or شو هاي طنجرة ألومينو عم تنضفها؟ – ‘what, is this an aluminium pan you’re washing?’

مفكر حالك – literally ‘you think yourself’. This can be followed by a noun, an adjective or a full verbal sentence: ‘Do you think that you’re…’ Other examples include مين مفكر حالك؟ ‘who do you think you are?’ and مفكر حالك بسويسرا؟ ‘do you think you’re in Switzerland?’

طنجرة ألومينو – an aluminium pan. Note that the 2iDaafe is used to express the material.

روح هيك لشوف
ruu7 heek la-shuuf!
Get out of here!

We saw لشوف in our last video.

المشكلة بالسويد إنو ما بيعطوكي الجنسية لتعرفي تحكي سويدي
ilmishikle bissweed 2inno maa bya3Tuuki jjinsiyye la-ta3irfi ti7ki sweedi.
The problem with Sweden is that they don’t give you citizenship until you can speak Swedish.

المشكلة بـ – ‘the problem with’

ما بيعطوكي – note that even though the meaning of ‘you’ here is generic (i.e. = ‘one’) it still agrees with the addressee.

تحكي سويدي – note that this is one of the verbs that takes an indefinite object where fuS7a would have a definite object instead.

والسويدي صعب, صعب كتير.
w issweedi Sa3eb, Sa3b iktiir.
And Swedish is hard, really hard.

يعني أصعب من الإنجليزي والفرنساوي.
ya3ni 2aS3ab mn il2ingliizi w ilifransaawi
Harder than English or French.

الفرنساوي- an alternative form to فرنسي faransi, derived regularly from فرنسا

يمكن لازم نروح على بريطانيا.
yimken laazem nruu7 3ala briTaanya
Maybe we should go to the UK.

نروح – you might be able to hear that he pronounces this more like rruu7. This sort of assimilation of n- to l- or r- is quite common.

ع أساس انت بلبل بالإنجليزي أبي!
3a 2asaas 2inte bilbol bil2ingliizi 2abi!
Because your English is fluent, eh dad?

ع أساس – a variant of على أساس, literally ‘on the basis [that]’. This is used to signal that what follows is an obviously untruthful claim or assumption by the other person: عأساس ما بتعرف ‘as if you don’t know!’ He’s obviously (rudely) pointing out that his dad is as incapable of speaking English as he is of speaking Swedish.

بلبل بـ a nice and common idiomatic way of saying ‘fluent in’. Literally ‘a nightingale in’.

إخرس ولا! اخرس يا كلب
2ikhras wla! 2ikhras ya kalb!
Shut your mouth! Shut it, you bastard!

ولا – a rude or very familiar form of address

اخرس – or خراس – ‘shut up’. The second imperative is actually unclear (to me and to the native speakers I asked), but this was our best collective guess. If you can work out what it is, please tell me!

يا كلب – ‘you dog’. Very rude.

يلعنك
yil3anak
Damned kid.

يلعنك – literally ‘may He damn you’. A slightly folksy curse.

ولك خففولنا ع الطبل والزمر بقى
wlak khaffifuu-lna 3aTTabel w izzamer ba2a!
Turn that racket down already!

خففولنا ع – ‘go lighter for us on’

الطبل والزمر – literally ‘drumming and piping’, a common collocation referring to noise, racket, etc.

العمى, كإنو قاعدين على طريق الغوطة!
l3ama! ka2inno 2aa3diin 3ala Tarii2 ilghuuTa!
Bloody hell! You’d think we were on the road to Ghouta!

لعمى – ‘blindness’, a common exclamation.

كإنو قاعدين – literally ‘[it’s] as if we’re sitting’ on the road to Ghouta, a common picnic spot.

قلتيلي هاي وردة شو بتشتغل؟
2iltiili haay warde shuu btishtighel?
What did you say Wardeh’s job was?

Literally ‘you told me this Wardeh what does she work [as]?’

سكرتيرة بمول
sekrateera b-mool.
She’s a secretary at a mall.

سكرتيرة؟
sekrateera?
A secretary?

Abu Abdo is implying, with his body language and his tone, that Wardeh is actually a (nightclub) dancer and is hiding this fact by claiming she’s a ‘secretary’.

That’s all for now. If you want to watch the rest of the show, all of the episodes are available on YouTube!