Monday

Arabic Lesson - Throw it in the Trash

In Syrian and Lebanese dialect, the way to say "throw" is كبّ "kibb".  This is used in sentences like كبّه بالزبالة (kibbu bizzibaleh) - "throw it in the trash", and كبّ الطابة (kabb attabeh) - "he threw the ball".  Kibb is the imperative.  Just like إرمي (irmi) - "throw" in MSA. Kabb is the masculine past tense, "he threw".
The following clip is from a Syrian show called رومانتيكا Romantica which revolves around a big love triangle, or more like a love pentagon.  The name of the girl yelling in the clip is تهاني (Tahani).  She's telling كوكب (Kokab) to throw away a bouquet (باقة) of flowers that was given to her.  That's all the context needed to get what's going on.

تهاني: كوكب, كبيها كبيها
كوكب: ما بدك ياها؟
تهاني: لا.  كبيها بالزبالة
كوكب: ليش حتى كبها؟ نشّفها و بعملها زهورات

Tahani: Kokab, throw it out, throw it out.
Kokab: You don't want it?
Tahani: No.  Throw it in the trash.
Kokab: Why should I throw it away?  I'll dry them and make dried flowers (zuhurat).

So I had to look up what زهورات was.  I did a Google image search and it came back with pictures of dried flowers that people put into tea.  I imagine she's joking here when she says to dry to flower bouquet to put into tea.  You really learn something every day with Arabic. 

7 comments:

Witchy Lisa said...

Actually, the joke makes more sense if you use zoohoorat to mean tea flowers. I never really hear
'zahrat' being pluralized in that way unless it's about tea. But, I'm surrounded by old women....

Anonymous said...

I'm a little puzzled by the حتى after "lesh". I guess it means something like "why would I go as far as to throw them". Am I right? Is it used often that way?

The Arabic Student said...

Anon, it's usually لحتى. Here she said just حتى for some reason. It conveys a sense of "why would I". I did a quick Google search and the 2nd result was this sentence:
"ليش لحتى أدرس بما انو رح أغش؟"

"Why should I study since I'm going to cheat?"

Hope that gives a better idea of how that word is used.

Anonymous said...

Yaa mualim, lovin your posts. Its the little words like this that can help so much. I have a Jordanian friend that works with me sometimes and he is impressed with some of the new things I am able to say each time we work together. I just cant find a better place to learn the colloquial! Please keep it up!

Anonymous said...

This also: http://www.facebook.com/Souria.B5er.Lesh.Ma.Ned7ak

سوريا بخير ليش لحتى مانضحك ؟؟
Syria is fine, why shouldn't we laugh?? (Sarcastic political comment)

Anonymous said...

Hi,
First of all i want to say that i really like how you speak arabic with a perfect pronunciation, that's awesome =)
i just want to correct a mistake you made in this post (i'm a native speaker:levantine (syrian) dialect)
the mistake was: كبّ الطابة

we use the word كبّ in a sentence like:

throw it in the trash

or

he threw the water on the chair

كب المي على الكرسي



but in a sentence like:

he threw the ball

we don't use كبّ but rather we use زِتّ (zitt):
زت الطابة

sorry for my bad english :S

Insomniac said...

Hi

Just wondering what MSA/fusha is for garbage/dustbin?

Thanks