Arabic words and phrases while in Egypt
 

Can anyone share some useful words or phrases in the Arabic Language. Greeting people in their own language has always been well received by the nationals in every country you go.

Thanks

We bought a little phrase book before we went. Included in the "essential" phrases was "take me to the camel races" and "where is the embassy?" Fortunately, we needed neither phrase. Tried to use basic Arabic greetings - were always answered with a laugh in English. I guess our pronunciation was atrocious. Nice idea, though.

I suggest picking up the Berlitz Arabic phrase book, which incudes a CD - it runs about 20$.
The CD gives you a head start on pronounciation, and the phrase book is compact, and categorized by situation, such as, travel, accomodation, food, health, and so on.

Most everyone in Egypt spoke English. I only used Shokram which is Thank You. I never had any need for other words although I did try a few from my book. And as usual, everyone had a good laugh!

Here are some basics. Remember, Arabic words translationed into English vary somewhat - especially with respect to vowels. So, guidebooks may have some of the below words with slightly different spellings. Worry about the pronounciation, not the spelling.

shokran (pronounced show-kron) - means "Thank you"

la - (rhymes with "baa") - means "No" (practice "la shokran" a lot before going to the pyramids)

la-a ("la" with an extra "aaa" sound at the end)- a more emphatic "No"

aywa (pronunced like the state -Iowa) - means "Yes"

minfadlak (pronounced "min-faad-lock" -means "please"

"izzayak" (pronounced iz-zay-yak") is one of the common phrases for basically "how are you?"

"kwassa" (pronounced "k-way-ss") - means "good" - females add an "a" and say "k-way-ss-a"

You will also hear lots of the following in response to your comments...

"inshallah" - means "if Allah wills it"

"haamdillah" - means "Thank Allah"

"bokra" - means tomorrow

"afwa" - roughly means "no problem", often used after "shokran"


Most Egyptians that you will encounter will know some English, but a few Arabic words always helps!

"afwan" means "thank you" and is said in response to "shokran".

The phrase for "no problem" is "ma alesh". This is used all the time in Egypt. It's also equivalent to "don't worry about it" or "oh well".

"min fadlek" is Arabic, but rarely used by Egyptians. A better way to say "please" in Egypt is "low samHt" which is more akin to "if you permit."

Have a great trip!

As Grcxx3 mentioned, "la shokran" ("no thank you") may be one of the most helpful phrases since the sellers can often be very aggressive. I remembered it by thinking that it was so overwhelming to be hassled by 5 salesmen chasing after me at once that I was in SHOCK and wanted to RUN - la shockrun!

This site has very interesting phrases and words spoken in Arabic
http://www.youregypt.com/eguide/lang/