Thursday

Lebanese Arabic - enter فات

This is an essential word in Levantine dialect. The word فات (fat) means "he entered" and the present tense is يفوت (yfut). The word فات is also used in MSA, but it has a different meaning. It means "to pass away". The examples below will help clear up the way the word is used. There's another phrase I hear a lot that I didn't mention in the video. On TV when the channel wants you to tune in to a future program they'll say لا يفوِّتك (la yfawwitak) which means "don't miss it" or literally, "don't let it pass you by". You will hear this word used all the time.
To enter:
1. الي حابب يضحك يفوت (illi haabib yidhak yfut) - Whoever likes to laugh, enter. (talking about an internet forum topic)
2. لما كسرت الباب فات علينا البرد (limma kasart al bab fat 'alayna al bard) - When you broke down the door, the cold entered (on us).

To pass by:
3. فات الاوان (fat al awaan) - the time has passed
4. الي فات مات (illi fat mat) - let bygones be bygones (literally, "what's passed is dead")

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again very usefull lesson:)

Some additional stuff

*to pass(mostly used about time)

السنة اللي فاتت=as-sana elle faatet
last year.

Expression:

فات الوقت=faat al-wa2t=It is too late.(literally :the time passed)

and new one that i came across:

هاي شغلة فاتتني=haay sha3'le faatetnee
I didn't pay attention to this matter.


*to enter,to go in

لما فُتت ع بيت=lammaa fotet 3al-bayt
When I entered home

اتفضل فوت-itfaDDal foot!!!=Please ,come in!!


Enjoy!!!
czarek

The Arabic Student said...

Thanks, Czarek! I didn't knowهاي شغلة فاتتني . Also, when I read that one it made me remember, انا فايت بالحيط . I've heard that one a lot and it MIGHT mean "I'm going crazy" like someone/something is driving you crazy. Literally it says "I'm entering the wall". Someone correct me if I'm wrong about the usage.

RamzyPali said...

In Palestinian Dialect, to tell someone to "enter," we sometimes use فوت, but the most common word I hear is دخل. I mostly hear فوت come from relatives from northern Palestine (eg. Nazareth), which might explain the correlation with Lebanese Arabic, while دخل is predominant in central Palestine (eg. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, Ramallah).

On a side note, Palestinian Arabic is very unique because is has elements of mostly Levantine with strong influence of Egyptian Arabic (eg. using ش at the end of the word to negate instead of ما at the beginning) and Aramaic.

It would be great to see more videos dealing with Palestinian dialect in specific.

Anonymous said...

I've always taken فايت بالحيط to mean "I'm completely lost," "I don't know what to do," "I don't know what's going on," "I'm totally confused," etc. So on my reading it does come close to meaning "I'm going crazy," but it's specifically as a result of feeling adrift or confused, not because someone is driving you crazy.

tulio_bathory said...

Hey!!! I've learning arabic for 4 months and i find your blog reallllly fantastic, it's helping me a lot. I have a request of video, there is a lebanese movie that i love very much, it's called Sukkar Banat, in english it's Caramel, could you make the transcriptions for this movie, please!?!
I'll send you the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsKJSCfNPMg
that's the first part of the movie.



Best regards!
Thanks for everything!

Tulio Brasileiro.