Sorry (asif and smahli)

فبراير 11th, 2008

The standard word to use for apologizing is آسف (asif) and آسفة (asifa). This word is appropriate in formal or business situations.

In casual situations, there are some other colloquial (local dialect) words to use for apologizing. In Morocco, the word سمحلي (smahali) is used to apologize. This word literally means “forgive me”. The word is appropriate to use if you are late, need to get one’s attention, etc. This is also a good word for women to know, since unfortunately harassment does happen.

There have been other incidents where men would follow me in their cars down the street - pulling up and stopping, trying to talk to me as I stomped past them, then pulling ahead again and stopping. They didn’t care if I said I had a husband, but once I said that my husband was Moroccan, their expressions morphed from leering to fearful. With lots of “smahali”s, they would zip away immediately. - (Harassment in North Africa)

If someone says “smahli” or “asif”, you can respond and say “not a problem” by saying ليست مشكلة (layset muskila) in formal situations. To respond to “smahli” in Moroccan dialect (casual situations), you can say “makaen mushkil”.

Requests and thank you

ديسمبر 30th, 2007
To request something, you can say in standard Arabic, أريد (ureedu) or in Egyptian Arabic say عاوز (a’wiz) which means “I want”.

For example, أريد شاي مع الحليب (ureedu shay ma’ al-haleeb) - “I want tea with milk”.

To make this a polite request, you should say please, which is من فضلك min fadlak to a male or “min fadlik” to a female. أريد شاي مع الحليب من فضلك (ureedu shay ma’ al-haleeb min fadlak) - “I want tea with milk, please”.

A more informal way of saying please is “law samaht”. Say لو سمحت (law samaht) to a male and لو سمحتي (law samahtee) to a female.

تفضل (tfaddal) - Here you go (to a male); تفضلي (tfaddali) - to female

To say thank you, say شكراً (shukran). “Thank you very much” is شكراً جزيلاً (shukran jezeelan) or in informal Egyptian dialect, say “al-fi shukr”.

عفواً (afwan) - You are welcome.

Ahmed Saad

ديسمبر 24th, 2007

Ahmed Saad is an Egyptian singer, with a new song out, يا خسارة (ya kh-saara). يا خسارة means “What a pity!”
Here is the music video:

About This Blog

I am studying Arabic at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, and will be in Egypt in the summer. This site covers Arabic grammar, vocabulary, and other aspects of the Arabic language, and makes frequent use of YouTube videos, news, and other Arabic language resources on the Internet.