Egyptian Arabic Translation into English please
August 15, 2012 4:45 AM   Subscribe

Eyptian Arabic Translation Needed: انا دلوقت فى القطر لما اروح هكتبه وابعتهولك What does this mean in English? I tried Google translator and Bing, but it came back gobbledygook. Thank you!
posted by thatgirl1985 to Writing & Language (8 answers total)
 
"I'm in Qatar at the moment, when I go [leave?] I'll right it down and send it to you"
posted by xqwzts at 5:31 AM on August 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


write not right. Obviously. *#&!%
posted by xqwzts at 5:33 AM on August 15, 2012


Best answer: Qatar, the country, is قطر (no definite article). انا دلوقت فى القطر means "I'm on the train right now." Aside from that, the translation above is correct -- "I'm on the train right now, when I get there I'll write it down and send it to you."
posted by gg at 6:18 AM on August 15, 2012 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank You! Shukran! Appreciate the help!
posted by thatgirl1985 at 7:16 AM on August 15, 2012


Uhm. Not really? While it might make more sense [I don't know the context] and can be passed off as a typo in that case:

Train is قطار and Qatar is قطر [note there is actually an extra letter, the alef, in train: making the words written and pronounced differently]. Now sure القطر has a definite article making it "the Qatar", but still the definite article itself doesn't change the meaning of the word. "The train" would be القطار.
posted by xqwzts at 7:31 AM on August 15, 2012


Yes, "train" is قطار in standard Arabic, but in Egyptian Arabic "train" is قطر, pronounced 'aTr (with a glottal stop/hamza instead of a qaaf). This is just one of the little differences between standard and Egyptian Arabic. Qatar, the country, is simply قطر, not القطر.
posted by gg at 7:55 AM on August 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


Ah, interesting. Thanks for that.
posted by xqwzts at 3:30 PM on August 15, 2012


Response by poster: Yes, it is definitely "train" because my friend is in Egypt and NOT Qatar. And she speaks Egyptian Arabic : )
posted by thatgirl1985 at 10:54 AM on August 16, 2012


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