Sunday

Word with a lot of meanings - طلع

In this video I try to give a few examples of the many ways the word طلع is used. For someone first starting to learn Levantine dialect it seems like this word can just be thrown anywhere and mean anything, but with enough exposure you start to learn situations where it is used. A lot of the time it just means 'go', but there are many other uses.
1. إطلع من وشي/راسي (itla' min wishi/raasi) - Get out of my face.
2. إطلع السيارة (itla' assayyaara) - Get in the car.
3. طلّع فيي (talla' fiyyi) - Look at me.
4. بنهاية المحكمة هي طلعت بريئة (binihaayat almahkama hiyi tala'it baree'a) - At the end of the trial she turned out innocent.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

regarding example three, I believe the verb is actually the fifth form of
ط ل ع (i.e. تطلّع). the first taa' is often assimilated into the Taa', which makes it sound like the second form (though it can be distinguished, obviously, by context and by the fact that the assimilation leads to the Taa' being pronounced as if it has a shadda). Also, the pronunciation of في + first person pronoun varies from region to region in the Levant (as far as I've been able to tell). In Damascus, I believe most people would say فيني rather than فيّ.

Some other examples:
أنا طالع من البيت - I'm leaving the house

فكرت بالموضوع؟ شو طلع معك؟ - Did you think about it? What did you decide?

طلعت روحي من الزحمة هون - I'm sick of all the congestion here

The Arabic Student said...

Thanks much for the extra examples. As far as فيي vs فيني I've heard both even in the same country (Lebanon). It's really odd how there are such variations even within close proximity.

As for whether it's تطلّع or طلّع for #3, all I know is that the way I said it was the right way. If you do a google search for both تطلع فيي and طلع فيي you get 178,000 results for طلع فيي and 64,000 for تطلع فيي . I guess people use both spellings but say it the same way.

Anonymous said...

as you said, whether it's form 2 or form 5 matters less than saying it correctly. and, of course, there's no standardized spelling for 'aamiyya. I do find it useful to think of it as form 5 (if that is, in fact, correct), though, as the fifth form (with the same meaning) is present in MSA, and I always find it helpful to find bridges between MSA and colloquial.

LT SCHLEP said...

elf shukran for explaining this - I'm about to go back to Lebanon and this clears up one of the great Arabic mysteries for me. I always suspected it could mean anything, but it's good to see what that actually includes (but seriously, for all the richness of the Arabic language ... did they really have to use the same word for "come" and "go!?")

Ana said...

I think its like the MSA word hadara, hadara min and hadara ilaa ( to leave and to come), I would also like to ask, doesn't tala3a mean also to go out ? As going out with your friends and so

Aaron said...

In this short film (http://arabicshortfilms.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-hardest-question-ahmad-samara.html), it sounds like he's saying طلّع عليّ for "Look at me." Or is he saying طلّع لي?

The Arabic Student said...

Aaron, he says عليّ .