arabic translation

[stacybecks]

What does May-fah-hem-tiksh mean in english?

[Peter Pedant]

Short answer: I havent understood you (man to woman)

Long answer. Ma ........sh is a negative like the French ne.....pas.

fahem is the root for understand. Arabic refers to verbs in the third person sing aorist. He understood.

I understood is fahemtu

You is tacked on the end (enclitic). The Arabic identifies gender, you (masculine) is ak,

you (leddeh) is -ik

fahemtik I understood you.

mafahemstiksh I havent understood you

Easy, isnt it? It probably makes you wanna yak in the latest al-jazeera video.

an alternative is mafahemtoosh kelamik

(I havent understood your speech)

Grammarians say, 'The Arabic verb expands in a way that is not intuitive to the European mind.'

 

[Peter Pedant]

Oh, its probably Egyptian dialect, which explains why I understood it so quickly. Better educated people may be able to give the classical Arabic. 'La' can only be used with certain tenses.