Beginner - Do you love me?

ﺃﺤﺐ ('ahabba), the key word in this podcast, belongs to a group of Arabic verbs which pose comprehension and translation problems because they blur important distinctions:

ﺃﺤﺐ ('ahabba): (1) love (2) like
ﻨﺎﻢ (naama): (1) sleep (2) go to bed
ﺍﺴﺘﻴﻗﻇ (istayqadha): (1) wake up (2) get up

How would a native speaker of Arabic resolve the translation problems posed by the following sentences?

(1) Jusuf likes his wife, but it would be an exaggeration to say that he loves her.
(2) He went to bed early, but he couldn’t sleep.
(3) He woke up at seven o’clock, but he didn’t get up until eight.

@Desmond

Nice questions indeed! My attempts to answer 2 and 3

لقد خلد إلى النوم مبكّرا لكنّه لم يستطيع أن ينام

لقد استيقظ من النوم في الساعة السابعة لكنه لم ينهض عن السرير حتى الساعة الثامنة

@Desmond

أحبّ / يُحبّ
Form IV doubled verb
As you mentioned, in Arabic, it can mean to love or to like, depending on the context and tone.

أعجب / يُعجب بـ
Form IV regular verb
To strike with wonder, to amaze
Its passive participle can be used to express the meaning of - to like
(which does not reach the level of love)

عشِق / يعشق
Form I regular verb
To love passionately

Using these, let me try to answer your first question.
يوسف فعلا مُعجَب بزوجته لكنه سيكون مبالغة أن تقول إنّه يعشقها

@ Vinod

Thank you for your extremely interesting suggestions.

In your translation of sentence (1) you have completely avoided ﺃﺤﺐ ('ahabba). In the first main clause you employ ﻤﻌﺠﺐ (mu’jab), which can mean “admirer”, and you add an adverb (ﻓﻌﻼ) which corresponds approximately to “really”. In the second main clause you employ a form of the verb ﻋﺸﻖ (’ashiqa), which means “to love passionately”. It is interesting to note that you use the future tense of “kaana” because there is no present conditional tense in Arabic. Here something is lost in translation.

In the first part of sentence (2) you have avoided the verb ﻨﺎﻢ by employing a periphrasis. The only thing that surprises me here is the word ﺨﺎﻠﺪ (khalida?). “Khalid” is an adjective meaning “eternal”, and I think ﺨﺎﻠﺪ can also be used as a verb meaning “to live eternally”. In your sentence, however, ﺨﺎﻠﺪ must be the past tense of a verb of movement since it is followed by a preposition meaning “to” or “towards” and a noun meaning “sleep” (preceded by the proclitic definite article). In the second part of the sentence the verb ﻴﻨﺎﻢ is unambiguous. It can only mean “fall asleep”.

In sentence (3) you use two different verbs: ﺍﺴﺘﻴﻗﻇ (istayqadha) and ﻨﻬﺽ (nahada), and in each case to try to make the meaning perfectly clear by adding a prepositional phrase. The first verb is followed by a phrase meaning “from sleep”, while the second one is followed by a phrase meaning “from the bed”. I guessed you were going to suggest something like this.

I wonder if Ehab and Mohamed would have translated my sentences in exactly the same way as you did. Perhaps they will suggest improvements or alternatives.

@Desmond

Thanks for the reply. Yes, only a native speaker of Arabic can answer your questions correctly. So, let us wait for the comments and corrections from our hosts.

@ Vinod

Highly talented advanced learners can often resolve complex translation problems without the aid of a native speaker if they have sufficient time, skill and patience to conduct in-depth corpus analyses. Take the word “exaggeration”, for instance. Like many other lexical items, it can only be used in a limited number of idiomatic patterns such as “it is not an exaggeration to say that (…)”, “it is no exaggeration to state that (…)” or “it is hardly an exaggeration to say that (…)”. Advanced learners who know all the standard patterns will be able to write like native speakers, and if they are very gifted and have an exceptionally large vocabulary they may even be able to express themselves better than most native speakers. A competent advanced learner of French, for instance, will know that “exaggeration” often corresponds to an adjective (“exagéré” or “excessif”) in French, and he will be able to use patterns such as “il serait exagéré de prétendre que (…)” (cf. G. Simenon, Pietr-le-Letton: 197) or “il n’est pas excessif d’affirmer que (…)” (cf. J. Harzic, Faulkner: 131).

Now look at the Arabic noun ﻤﺒﺎﻠﻐﺔ (mubaalagha), which you employed in one of your translations. I’ve just run a Google search and found over eight million examples of this term. In one sentence that immediately caught my eye it ﻤﺒﺎﻠﻐﺔ (mubaalagha) is preceded by the preposition ﺒﺪﻮﻦ (biduun), and I wouldn’t be surprised if I came across an Arabic sentence whose literal English equivalent would be something like “you can’t + without exaggerating / exaggeration + assert that (…)”. If I had enough time to sift through about 5,000 examples I would probably be able to draw up a list of the principal patterns in which ﻤﺒﺎﻠﻐﺔ normally occurs in Arabic, and I would then be able to generate thousands of perfectly idiomatic Arabic sentences merely by imitating these patterns and putting different lexical items in the slots. This is exactly what linguistically competent Arabs do more or less unconsciously when they speak or write their native language.

Hey Vinod/Desmond,

Where did you guys learn so much about verbs? You guys seem to know them inside out!

@ Zacheriya

I've never taken a course in Arabic. I just teach myself with the aid of the Internet. At the moment I'm studying the use of the emphatic "la", "'inna" and the different functions of the letter "nuun". I've always found Ehab's podcasts very helpful. I extract the most useful information and arrange it systematically in a computer file so that I can always find what I'm looking for in a couple of seconds.

Since you're interested in classical Arabic you might have a look at the comment on pluralization I added a couple of hours ago. ﻈﻟﻤﺎﺖ is used in 21 verses in the Qu'ran.

@Desmond
Thanks a lot once again for the reply, and for your comments, which are so inspiring!

@Zacheriya
Just like Desmond, I am also learning Arabic myself from the internet. (I often joke with my friends that I have three teachers in Arabic – Me, myself and I). I too find computer essential for storing systematically and retrieving whatever I learn.

My method of learning Arabic is – to search & gather the necessary information, analyze & understand it, and make my own notes. (I follow the same method in my job as a surgeon!) And it is extremely good to know that there are people like Desmond, who share the same view, though in a different profession.

So far, I have not attended any formal course in Arabic, but I would be glad to, if I ever get the opportunity. But I am happy and proud to admit that Arabicpod was the main inspiration for me to start learning Arabic on my own.

@ Vinod

Thank you for your kind remarks. I admire your intelligence, your perseverance and your meticulous attention to detail. Isn’t it odd that we are both self-taught and that we have adopted similar methods although our learning situations are completely different? As far as I am concerned, Arabic is merely an intellectual luxury, a language which I listen to but never speak. In your case Arabic is an essential since you are permanently resident in an Arabic-speaking country.

How do you say "I like you?"' I understand that "أحبك" is a phrase saved for marriage, so how would an unmarried person express his feelings for a woman?

One could say (أنا معجب بكِ) which could be translated to (I fancy you).