Beginner - Sorry I was busy

salam good lesson , trying to get my head around the word aradta (you want) can you give us any more examples of this form ( is sami ta, you heard , kuz ta- you took, applicable). usman

also in the sentence can i use your car for 5 mins , i cannot see the word for is this how it is normally said or can we say ,( le )khams dqaaeq ,

These verbs Aradta أردتَ, same3ta سمعتَ, jama3ta جمعتَ ... are all past tense verbs that ends with the pronoun (ta) to indicate that who is doing the verb is (you).
As for the second question, you can use (li) before (7'ams خمس) so it becomes (li7'ams daqaa2eq لخمس دقائق). In the lesson, the way we translated the sentence with (for) is because it would sound wrong without it.

The temporal indication "khams daqaa'iq" calls for a few remarks. It is interesting to note that a Palestinian film entitled "Khams daqaa'iq aan bayti" was produced in 2008. If we look for information about the film on the Net, we find that the title has been rendered as "Five minutes from home".

The odds are that this rendering is a shade too literal, for, as Ehab has pointed out, "khams daqaa'iq" is often used metaphorically to refer to a very short period of time. Perhaps the best translation would be "(for) a few minutes".

"Khams daqaa'iq" is by no means the only Arabic expression which cannot always be taken at face value. "Awlad", the plural of "walad", may mean "boys" (cf. the Islamic video entitled "At-tajassus" (Spying)), but it often has to be translated as "children" (= atfal).

Ehab and Mohammad both of you have done a great work...a different way for learning Arabic. :coolsmile:

i get mixed up with "tfadl" meaning "here" and "ifdl" meaning "i prefer"