Wednesday

Egyptian Arabic Lesson from Hikayat Banat

This lesson is from the new show Hikayat Banat (حكايات بنات) which means "Girls' Stories".  The show is from the Ramadan 2012 line up on MBC and is in Egyptian dialect.  I haven't been watching it, but I went to a random episode and started listening for some speech that would make a good lesson.  This telephone soliloquy by one of the characters works well.  All you need to know as far as context goes is that she's trying to reach her husband and his secretary doesn't know where he is.



  • يعني ايه حببتي ما تعرفيش هو فين؟
What do you mean, baby, that you don't know where he is?

يعني ايه - what do you mean? (literally "what does it mean", but we wouldn't say that in English)
حببتي - you'll notice that this is pronounced differently from MSA and Levantine dialects where it is حبيبتي .  In Egyptian they get rid of the ي in the middle and it becomes حببتي.
ما تعرفيش - the ش at the end is to negate.  ما تعرفي means the same thing, but in Egyptian they put a ش at the end of the verb too when negating it.

  • هو انتي برضه مش السكرتيرة بتاعته ولا انا فاهمة غلط؟
Aren't you still his secretary or am I mistaken?

هو - this literally means "he", but in Egyptian they will just put هو in as a filler.  It's kind of like انه in some Levantine dialects. 
برضه (bardu) - means "still" or "also".
بتاعته - "belonging to him".  The base word is بتاع.  If it's a feminine word that is possessed then it becomes بتاعت .  And then at the end you put who it belongs to.  In this case it refers to "secretary" which is feminine, بتاعت , and it's her husband's secretary, so it's بتاعته .
ولا - "or".  Does not mean "and not".


  • و هو انا كنت مستنية الفكرة العبقرية بتاعتك دي. مانا كلّمته على الموبايل و لقيته مقفول
I was waiting for this genius idea from you. I called his cellphone and it was off.

From the context the secretary must have suggested that she call him on his cellphone. 
هو - Same thing as I mentioned before.  They just throw in هو sometimes.
عبقرية - genius
دي - short for هذه .  Means "this".  For هذا they say ده (da).
مانا - she puts an م on the front of انا here.  They do that sometimes.  Don't worry about it.
لقيته - I found it.
مقفول - means "locked", but when talking about a cellphone it means "off".

  • اوكي يا جيجي.  اوكي.  لا خلاص.  انا عرفت دلوقتي ان انتي ما بتعرفيش عنه اي حاجة خالص
Ok, Gigi.  Ok.  No, it's fine.  I know now that you don't know anything about him at all.

خلاص - means "it's finished/done". 
دلوقتي - "now"
خالص - "at all".  In Syrian they would say بنوب .  In MSA إطلاقاً

  • انا هتصرّف.  باي
I'll act.  Bye.

تصرّف - to act/to behave (basically she means she'll figure it out/take care of it).  The ه at the beginning of the word is for future tense.

1 comment:

pato said...

you are doing a great job really!