Beginner - Whatever

I’d like to comment on three words:

(1) I think ﺃﺒﻐﻰ is a regionalism (a Levantine dialect word?). The third person singular (masculine) is probably ﻴﺒﻐﻰ.

(2 The best English equivalent of ﻄﺰ is probably “I don’t care a damn”.

(3) In the present instance “ya (ﻴﺎ) haywaan (ﺤﻴﻮﺍﻦ)” could be rendered as “you beast”.

Hi again. Interesting lesson! Does طز عليك (pronounced Tuz 3layk, I guess?) mean the same thing as طز فيك ? Thanks.

Oh goodness gracious! What an entertaining and informative lesson. I've heard Tuz before and even "Tuz, Tuzayn, Thalatha!" Now I know some Turkish! :) I'm still laughing....

lol :D, you are making me laugh too guys.
Yes, you can exaggerate and make them tuzayn (two tuzes) and thalatha (3 tuzes) :)
And yes, (tuz 3aleek طز عليك) is used as well and it gives the same meaning in general. I'm sure if you say either of them to someone you'll get the same reaction :) so they give same meaning.

ha ha...good one for a change.the last sentence was quite powerful and that is one of the characteristics of this language...still remember my school days when our arabic sirs used to yell at us "ya haywaan"!! LOL

أوريك : what is the verb ? one of those "open" verbs ?
funny lesson though - thanks

It is actually the colloquial way of saying (أريك) and the root is (رأى). Great you all enjoyed the lesson, we did too especially while recording :)

Hi.
I asked a question on the lesson "meet me there".
I dont know if you havent seen it since it is some days ago :)
Thank you in advance and for a great arabic learning site :))

Oh, sorry about that, I answered it just now.
By the way, you can always put your comment directly in the lesson's page even if the lesson is an old one, we always check the latest comments regardless to when we recorded the lesson, so you don't need to put comments in latest lessons to refer to another older one ;)

Shukran :)

I found that listening is the best way to learn language. You guys are engaging and your teaching style is very effective. Thanks and I hope you will also come out with videos for visual element. Thanks a lot and keep it up.

I was in egypt last week , and a passing boy asked me "what is your name?" as children do in that country, another boy then answered him for me saying"Mr 60z" and it was a wonderful moment as we could all three laugh at the joke.....this site is very up to date..thank you.

lol great story Berry, thanks for sharing it with us

I have to say that although I initially found this episode to be a lot of fun, very interesting and helpful, I was disappointed when I tried to use the word with my Saudi friends. It apparently is much more offensive than the English phrase "whatever"- which can be either playful or disrespectful, depending on how it is used. However, the response I received when trying out "Tuz" was very negative, as though I was using f**k off" or another equally offensive English word. I think that "whatever" is simply not a strong enough translation for this word. One girl told me "people who respect themselves do not ever use this word." I had thought that I could use the word in jest, in poking fun with my friends, informally, but now I feel that I have made a bad impression on them, using a word in Arabic that I would never have used in English. I know that you guys said it was rude, but the extent of the offensiveness of this word was not entirely clear.

Hi SashaJohnson,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us and sorry it was negative. Whether or not ‘tuz’ is considered offensive depends on the context it comes in and the person you’re speaking to. For example, obviously it will be extremely offensive if someone told you their loved one passed away and you replied with ‘Tuz’, and probably not offensive if you replied to someone telling you that the planned night out to the cinema has been cancelled etc. I’m not sure in what context you have used it in, but like ‘Whatever’, the word shouldn’t be used in serious or adult discussions. I don’t think the word is as bad as you make it out to be, for I have used it many times jokingly with close friends (From Saudi as well). I’m not sure how close your Arab friends were, but I recommend avoiding this word with distant friends so as to prevent them from possibly being offended.

Dear SashaJohnson,
Dear Mohamed,

I’ve just read your latest comments with great interest. If you look at the comment I posted on 8th January 2010 you’ll see that I was then well aware of the expressive potential of ﻄﺰ. However, the reactions of SashaJohnsons interlocutors suggest that in certain circumstances ﻄﺰ may be even more offensive than I originally assumed. If ﻄﺰ is used to express mild irritation (cf. Mohamed’s comment), “I don’t give a damn” (said in a jocular tone) might be a workable English equivalent, but if the Arabic expletive is used aggressively it might be preferable to render it by more offensive English expressions such as “I don’t give a bloody damn”, “I don’t give a f-g damn” or “I don’t give a f-k” (the title of an extremely vulgar and aggressive American rap song).

A good German equivalent would be “Das ist mir scheißegal”. This is the title of a most distasteful German pop song, and if I were to say this to my German friends they would probably react in the same way as the people that SashaJohnson spoke to.

Perhaps I ought to add a brief remark on the final sentence of the dialogue presented in the podcast. A good English equivalent would be “The same to you with knobs on!” This is a standard response to insults.

hi all.i'm from china.
i Guess its kind of difficult for me to handle well with speaking and writting which i do wish i could,inshallah,someday.
and the learning resources here r so much limited,i'm sincerely here ask anyone native speaker can give me a hand in learning arabic.
thx so much in advace.

When I was a kid , we used to say "I don´t give a "Tuz"........on one level it carries the same meaning as my understanding of the word, I think it may not be used so much in North Africa as i have never heared it , but have collected many offensive words on my travels, I have always found them to be powerful words if used at the right moment.

Dear Berry,

The locution you cite must be exceptionally rare. I can't find any examples on the Net.

There are some other English expressions that might be mentioned here: "I don't care a fig", "I don't give a fig" and "I don't care a whit". These expressions are now old-fashioned, comparatively rare, and inoffensive.

It remains to add that the Romans said "non flocci facere" (e.g. ego quae tu loquere flocci non facio). ("Floccus" is a tuft of wool.) A similar expression (maistan masiwantan) was used in Hittite, the earliest attested Indo-European language.

hi Desmond,
try it with toss......I was playing with the arabic, sadly most of the cockney stuff has gone, as a tribe we exchanged our oral culture for bathrooms , and the back slang and songs and rich phrases like "Sling yer ook " meaning go away while urinating,are lost . The dock workers on the Thames worked with a hook , like that on the end of the arm of captain Hook.

Thanks for your rapid response, Berry. "Not give a toss" is in current use and might be related to the phrasal verb "toss off", which, according to the "Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang", was coined in the late nineteenth century.

There are lots of English expressions meaning "I couldn't care less", and I could suggest numerous equivalents in other European languages (das ist mir schnuppe, je m'en fiche, etc.). I'm sure there must be lots of synonymous expressions in Arabic, too.

Our discussion has given me a new idea. A series of podcasts might be devoted to the use of idiomatic expressions in Arabic. Listeners who have studied Arabic at tertiary level probably have manuals of Arabic idioms. Perhaps they could tell us which books they would recommend. If they have found mistakes in these reference books, they ought to let us know, and they might also suggest improvements.

Listeners who have already attained a high level of proficiency in Arabic might send lists of Arabic idioms to Ehab. After checking the authenticity of the idioms, Ehab could publish the list on this website and tell us what each idiom means. Listeners who have a good command of English could then suggest English translations, and the results of our discussions could be presented in podcasts. The first part of each podcast would be a short Arabic dialogue illustrating the use of some typically Arabic idiom, and the second part would be a discussion of the translation problems posed by the expression in question.

What do you think of this proposal? Would other listeners like to comment on this?

I think how offensive a word is (in this case طز)is a function of the social group or even the region in which one may be. For example, in Spanish, I've heard "coño" used in some TV series and movies (Spanish and Argentinean) in a slightly joking way. On the other hand, I suspect that in Mexico, such a word would not be accepted. There, even when insulting someone, it seems polite words (sinverguenza, descarado, palurdo, etc.) are used.

I think you’re right, Serena12. In the case under discussion regional and social distinctions need to be taken into consideration. A word which is considered offensive in one region may be deemed inoffensive in another, and in a deeply conservative society words used habitually by men might seem offensive when used by women (cf. SashaJohnson’s comments).

The Spanish word “coño” is quite interesting in this respect. Like its French cognate “con”, “coño” may be used in many different ways, and the offensiveness of the term depends to a large extent on the context in which it is employed (cf. the numerous examples cited in the “Oxford Spanish Dictionary” and the “Grand Dictionnaire Larousse”). If non-native speakers want to use words like “coño” or “con”, they need to have an intuitive sense of linguistic appropriateness.

ah yes , that is spot on.....I think there are many good concepts for teaching , but I tend to prefer to teach those things which follow my own thread of thought, and I think the guys here are brilliant teachers , we are blessed , and they are such nice beings , as well.I expect they will decide what makes sense for them to present for us , and in this form have fun doing it.

Great lesson! Thanks for teaching a lesson like this - I don't know where else I would have learned a phrase like طز since it's obviously not going to be in textbooks - yet it's still really useful to know.

In the dialogue you use the prefix "rah-" before the verb "go out" to make it future tense (in the sentence "you will not go out with us"), but I was wondering about the use of "rah-" as opposed to "sa-" for making verbs future. ("sa'athhab" for "I will go"). Are they equivalent? I understand "rah-" is more colloquial - so is "sa-" before verbs a really formal thing to do?

Shukran lilmusa'ada

Dear Paul,

The word ﻄﺰ has been included in a new glossary compiled by a Russian linguist. Some of the expressions that have been recorded here are very funny.

ﺮﺡ isn’t a prefix. It’s a particle. You’ll find more information about this word in one of my comments on “Complex program”.

But is it interchangeable with "sa-" before verbs?

No, the lexical elements under discussion can't be interchangeable since they don't belong to the same register. The particle "rah" is colloquial, while the prefix "sa-" is neutral.

I don't know any language where words belonging to different registers are interchangeable. Informal words are used in conversations between people who know each other well, while neutral and formal terms are employed in letters of application, speeches delivered by heads of state or articles published in academic journals.

Thanks Desmond -
I know they're not interchangeable in that sense - I just wanted to know if they mean basically the same thing.

Dear Paul,
The prefix ﺴ and the particle ﺮﺡ undoubtedly have the same basic meaning, but, as I’ve already said, they don’t produce the same effect on the listener / reader because they belong to different registers. Perhaps I ought to add that there is another Arabic particle which is frequently used to express futurity. The very classical ﺴﻮﻒ is placed before present tense verb forms.

Interesting to hear about regional variations in offence taken to certain words - there are big cultural differences. I remember being surprised how widely merde is used in French along with many imaginatively & amusingly derived words and phrases (including one for large shoes!) yet the equivalent word in English is considered much more vulgar & offensive.