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Hi guys, I have seen in other lessons different words used of "think." Does حسب translate to "think" literally, or is it "assume" or are there multiple words for "think?" Thanks!

It can be (assumed), and it can be (thought).. We normally try to satisfy English and Arabic when we translate so the sentence makes sense in both languages.

The translation equivalents of "think" are determined by two factors: (1) the meaning of the verb "think", (2) the syntactic structure in which the verb in question is embedded.

If we want to ask somebody what he thinks of something we can use a noun instead of a verb. One of the podcasts contains the sentence: "Eesh rayak fii hadha al-filim?" The English equivalent is "What do you think of this film?" The word group "what do you think of" corresponds to "eesh rayak fii". The basic pattern is therefore INTERROGATIVE PARTICLE (eesh) + ray (= opinion) + PRONOUN SUFFIX (-ak) + PREPOSITION (fii) + NOUN PHRASE (hadha al-filim).

If we want to express an opinion we can use a verb form like "ahtaqid". A typical example ("la ahtaqid") can be found in the video where we see Ehab strolling along the beach. There are also two examples of this verb in the Berlitz "Arabic Phrase Book" (Berlin: Langenscheidt, 1998), pp. 41, 42. In both cases "ahtaqid" is followed by the subordinating particle "an", which introduces a noun clause.

It is interesting to note that the verb "fakkara", which probably belongs to the same family as "fikra" (idea), is listed as a potential equivalent of "think" on a website for students of Arabic (http://arabic.speak7.com/arabic_vocabulary_verbs.htm). Unfortunately, there are no example sentences, no usage notes and no conjugation tables.

There are probably lots of other potential equivalents in the Arabicpod podcasts.

Seven years later, and it's still a fantastic lesson!

صراحة , أنا أحبه