# ما / ماذا



## xebonyx

ما الاختلاف بين *ما* و* ماذا* ؟انا اسفة ان هذا سؤال سهلا


What is the difference between "ma" and "matha"? Sorry it's too simple of a question!) 

I've heard you use one according to what the question is, yet I've also heard it doesn't matter what you use it with. Is there a method to making distinctions with their usage?


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## grazzacraze

Your question is not too simple it needs some thinking I'm a native Arabic speaker and I had to think about this before answering, I never thought about it before.

"Matha" is used before verbs or verbal phrases in questions (usually the answer is a verb or verb phrase)

examples : 

-ماذا تقولين؟ what are you saying?
-ماذا فعلت بشأن الواجب؟ What did you do about the homework?
-ماذا تريدني أن أفعل؟ What do you want me to do?

"Ma" is mostly used before demonsterative/personal prounouns (usually the answer is a noun or a noun phrase)

examples:


-ما هذا؟ What is (this)?
-ما هي الطريقة الأمثل لتعلم لغة جديدة؟ what is (literally she; in translation omitted) the best way to learn a new language? 

I hope this has given you an idea!! It might not be the case all the time, but starting from there will help a lot


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## xebonyx

Thanks for the clarification.  Though, isn't it grammatically correct to ask:

ما فعلت اليوم؟

But with your given examples, it doesn't fit.


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## grazzacraze

> Thanks for the clarification.  Though, isn't it grammatically correct to ask:
> 
> ما فعلت اليوم؟
> 
> But with your given examples, it doesn't fit.


 
No, it isn't. It is grammatically incorrect. It should be 

ماذا فعلت اليوم؟


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## abusaf

> ما هي الطريقة الأمثل لتعلم لغة جديدة؟



Shouldnt it be ما هي الطريقة المثلى ?


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## grazzacraze

abusaf said:


> Shouldnt it be ما هي الطريقة المثلى ?


 

I think both are correct. It's superlative form. "الأمثل " works the same way "الأفضل" and "الأحسن" do.


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## xebonyx

Thank you!


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## eac

What about with كان and her sisters, the so-called incomplete verbs?  Which is better:

ما كان اسمه؟
ماذا كان اسمه؟​


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## Josh_

Definitely ماذا.

The first sentence is the negative "his name wasn't..."

There are some exceptions, though.  Check here.  I don't know why, but as elroy said it sounds better (and I agree) -- maybe because عنك is a short word and ماذا is used to maintain rhythm.  ما عنك doesn't sound complete for some reason.


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## elroy

Well, the following also sound better than they would with ما:

ماذا لديك؟
ماذا عندك؟
ماذا بجانبك؟

I don't know what the rules are; I use these words by feel!


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## SaiH

I have a question concerning ما / ماذا as a conjunction: 
 I'm not sure - when do I use maa and when maadha?
 Are both possible?

 لا أعرف ما هو السبب
 I think that here is maa the only correct version because there is no verb.

 لا أعرف ماذا تريد
 لا أعرف ما تريد or لا أعرف ما تريده
 Here I'm not sure - I found both. But I don't know if there is a difference in meaning.


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## elroy

Welcome to the forum! 


SaiH said:


> لا أعرف ما هو السبب
> I think that here is maa the only correct version because there is no verb.


 You are right. 


> لا أعرف ماذا تريد
> لا أعرف ما تريد or لا أعرف ما تريده
> Here I'm not sure - I found both. But I don't know if there is a difference in meaning.


 The version with ماذا sounds much more natural.

If I wanted to use ما in that sentence, I would say لا أعرف ما *الذي* تريده.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the rules are.  I can only tell you what sounds good and what doesn't.


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## Taalib

SaiH,

Another reason we write لا أعرف ماذا تريد rather than لا أعرف ما تريد is because in the latter, the use of ما in front of a verb may confuse since it functions as a negative particle (albeit in perfect tense verbs only--although in everyday usage, it often gets used in the imperfect tense). 

It's a good example of how versatile the ما particle is. Here, there is a possible semantic conflict between two usages--the use of ما as negation device, and the use of ما as a relative pronoun--which forces a shift into another particle for clarity's sake. There are at least six other uses of ما in the modern Arabic lexicon: interrogative, nominalizing, durative, exclamatory, indefinite, and conditional.


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## Abu Rashid

> albeit in perfect tense verbs only--although in everyday usage, it often gets used in the imperfect tense



Although less common in MSA, I think it's still considered quite valid to negate an imperfect tense verb with ما


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## SaiH

I didn't stop reflecting on that... in most cases, only maa is possible. I figured out that maadha is only used in questions and indirect questions.

So, لا أعرف ماذا تريد may be considered as a indirect question, but not necessarily - this may explain why I found both versions.

In this example:
أعطيه ما يريد
I don't think that maadha can be used here. - Or am I wrong?


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## elroy

SaiH said:


> In this example:
> أعطيه ما يريد
> I don't think that maadha can be used here. - Or am I wrong?


 You are right.  ماذا would not work in that sentence.


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## Anatoli

Nitpick: isn't ماذا romanised as "maadha"? "Th" stands for ث, not for ذ, and the first vowel is long.


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## adamgrekas

Hello everyone, 

I really enjoyed reading your comments about the difference between ما and ماذا but I'm still confused as to why this exercise I'm doing uses ماذا instead of ما. I'm learning فصى. 

ماذا في الحقيبة؟ فيها كتابي وقلمي ودفتري

Since there is no verb in the sentence I thought ما would be used rather than ماذا, but then I thought maybe ماذا was used to avoid ambiguity with it's negative connotation. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! شكراً


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## Mahaodeh

I know this is an old thread, but since it's been revived:


grazzacraze said:


> "Matha" is used before verbs or verbal phrases in questions (usually the answer is a verb or verb phrase)


Actually, that's incorrect: قُلِ انظُرُواْ مَاذَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ - يونس 101
Of course, the linguists that claim this would say that there is an omitted verb here تقديره يوجد but since not all linguists agree with this, you can't really say that it's so.


grazzacraze said:


> "Ma" is mostly used before demonsterative/personal prounouns


مَّا يَفْعَلُ اللَّهُ بِعَذَابِكُمْ إِن شَكَرْتُمْ وَآمَنتُمْ - النساء 147
Of course "mostly" means that this is possible, but I'm not so confident about this since not all linguists agree. In fact, it's hard to consider them not interchangeable with this in mind:
إِذْ قَالَ لِأَبِيهِ وَقَوْمِهِ مَاذَا تَعْبُدُونَ - الصافات 85
إِذْ قَالَ لِأَبِيهِ وَقَوْمِهِ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ - الشعراء 70
Both of them talking about the exact same incident and quoting the exact same question. 


SaiH said:


> لا أعرف ما هو السبب
> I think that here is maa the only correct version because there is no verb.


Actually, I think that the most correct version is لا أعرف السبب; there is no question, so الاستفهام be it ما أو ماذا أو غيرهما. I also don't understand the necessity of using the pronoun, why not just لا أعرف ما السبب? I don't how correct that latter is since it's quite common, but the pronoun is just unnecessary.


Taalib said:


> Another reason we write لا أعرف ماذا تريد rather than لا أعرف ما تريد is because in the latter, the use of ما in front of a verb may confuse since it functions as a negative particle


I would never confuse it with a negative particle here. I do agree that ماذا is best used when ما might be confused for negation rather than interrogation, I just don't think that this is a good example of such a case, it is a good example of confusion with اسم موصول though - another good reason why you might want to use ماذا   .

The ما if used here might resemble الذي with the necessary pronoun omitted (عائد الصلة محذوف); that is, it is the same as لا أعرف الذي تريد where in both cases the pronoun is omitted. 


SaiH said:


> In this example:
> أعطيه ما يريد
> I don't think that maadha can be used here. - Or am I wrong?


Of course, and that's because ما here is اسم موصول بمعنى الذي and is not أداة استفهام. Even in English, when you say "give him what he wants" you mean "give him whatever he wants", the what is NOT interrogative.


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## Mahaodeh

adamgrekas said:


> Since there is no verb in the sentence I thought ما would be used rather than ماذا, but then I thought maybe ماذا was used to avoid ambiguity with it's negative connotation.


I don't want to repeat the previous post so I'll just say that it's mostly confused with اسم موصول rather than ما النافية, although the latter is possible. In this particular case however: ما في الحقيبة as a stand-alone sentence would not be confused with either. ما would automatically be understood to be interrogative with the meaning of "what".

According to معاني النحو لفاضل السامرائي; the word ماذا is used with three meanings:
1. A contraction of ما + هذا. Hence it is incorrect to say ماذا هذا because you are repeating هذا. An example of such use is: 
هَوَازِنُ أقبِلي ماذا التَّوانِي -----  أدينُ العِزّ أم دينُ الهَوانِ
Meaning: ما هذا التواني

2. A contraction of ما + الذي. Hence you can't say ماذا الذي. This is much more common than the first one, an example would be:
قُلِ انْظُرُوا مَاذَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ - سورة يونس 101
Meaning: ما الذي في السموات والأرض

3. It's one word meaning ما. In this case it can be interchangeable.

Back to your sentence, since it's stand-alone and there is nothing that would force the first or the second case, and there is no possible confusion with any other meanings of ما, then you can choose whether you want it to mean any of the three: you can simply mean ما في الحقيبة؟, requiring a less specific and indefinite answer such as كتاب ودفتر وقلم (a more specific and definite answer is optional not incorrect); or mean ما الذي في الحقيبة؟ requiring at least a definite answer because الذي is definite, hence something like كتابي ودفتري وقلمي (also an indefinite answer is not incorrect although not expected); or mean ما هذا في الحقيبة؟ in which case a positive answer is expected since the question implies that the asker knows that something is actually in the bag and is pointing to it (figuratively) and asking about it, so an answer of لا شيء is not expected.


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## Ali Smith

Mahaodeh: Maybe ماذا when used with the first meaning is simply ما + ذا? Because ذا alone is an اسم إشارة, isn't it? For instance,

اللَّهُ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ ۚ لَا تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلَا نَوْمٌ ۚ لَّهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ مَن ذَا الَّذِي يَشْفَعُ عِندَهُ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِهِ ۚ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ ۖ وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِّنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلَّا بِمَا شَاءَ ۚ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ ۖ وَلَا يَئُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا ۚ وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ

Translation: Who is this person who can intercede with Him without His permission?


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## Sarah Bundogji

One difference between the ما and ماذا is that when you answer a question that has ما, your answer should be in the accusative case, but when you answer a question that has ماذا, the answer has to be nominative. For example,

ما تأكل؟
آكل لحما

ماذا تشتري؟
كتب


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## Ali Smith

Sarah Bundogji: I don't know about ما, but the answer to ماذا can be in either case. Observe:

وَقِيلَ لِلَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا مَاذَا أَنزَلَ رَبُّكُمْ ۚ قَالُوا خَيْرًا
(سورة النحل:٣٠)

وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُم مَّاذَا أَنزَلَ رَبُّكُمْ ۙ قَالُوا أَسَاطِيرُ الْأَوَّلِينَ
(سورة النحل:٢٤)


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## zj73

How come no one ever says ماذا اسمك or ماذا عنوانك?


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## Ali Smith

zj73 said:


> How come no one ever says ماذا اسمك or ماذا عنوانك?


Because it would be equivalent to saying ما الذي اسمك and ما الذي عنوانك.

Remember, ماذا means ما الذي "What is the thing that...?".


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## Romeel

Ali Smith said:


> Because it would be equivalent to saying ما الذي اسمك and ما الذي عنوانك.


This wrong we don't say ما الذي اسمك but rather ما (هو) اسمك

If you want to say ما الذي it must followed by verb like ما الذي *أتى *بك هنا


Ali Smith said:


> Remember, ماذا means ما الذي "What is the thing that...?".


I don't think so or not always

Look to the examples below to distinguish between them
ما إسمهُ
ماذا سميّته

also ما used for wider options than ماذا


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## Mahaodeh

zj73 said:


> How come no one ever says ماذا اسمك or ماذا عنوانك?


Because ماذا is always followed by a verb (or at least a verbal sentence) while ما can be followed by anything.
اسمك and عنوانك are both nouns. ماذا can not be followed by a noun or pronoun.



Ali Smith said:


> Remember, ماذا means ما الذي "What is the thing that...?".


I’m not sure you can say that definitively. This has always been disputed among grammarians, and the majority is of the opinion that it’s one word ماذا, not ما + الذي nor ما + ذا.

If it were ما + الذي then theoretically it can be replaced with it, but this is not always the case. In fact, in most cases you actually need to change the sentence a little even when الذي does fit.

For example: ماذا تريد would be ما الذي تريده, notice the عائد in the second case missing in the first. I don’t believe that ماذا contains اسم موصول.



Romeel said:


> If you want to say ما الذي it must followed by verb like ما الذي *أتى *بك هنا


ماذا is followed by a verb. قد يحذف الفعل ولكن ماذا لا تدخل إلا على الجملة الفعلية.

I’m not disagreeing with your overall point, I’m just saying that this statement doesn’t make your point. 🙂


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