# that the church be unfailingly generous in sharing her gifts from God, we pray



## SuKi*~

Hi all   How is everyone?

So I go to a Catholic school, and we're having a mass, and the moderator thought it would be a good idea if students with different backgrounds could translate sections of prayers into their language to say, to signify the diversity in the school, and I thought I'd give it a go. Only, my translation makes just about NO sense. ^^;

this is what I wound up with;
إن الطائفة سخي خارج كذا فشل, ومدد الهبة حاز من الله, صلي

and this is (what is supposed to be) the original translation:
... that the church be unfailingly generous in sharing her gifts from God, we pray. . .
I switched some of the wording around so I could try and translate it nicer, ("That the church be generous without fail and share her gifts from god, we pray") but it's still funky. I put it through the corrector on Sakhr, because my written Arabic is, frankly, horrendous, and worked out some of the problems it suggested, but when I put it back through the translator, it just doesn't make sense.

Could some of you just tell me what you get from this sentence, exactly as you understand it, in English, so I can get a clear reading of what to fix? I would really appreciate it. And... sorry for completely butchering the language forever. I've never felt so utterly useless in Arabic; it's embarrassing.  

PS - another thing - for the verb صلي, is that the right word? I initially had طصلي, which apparently isn't a word  (spoken "Tasalee", I took a guess as to how it would be spelled in Arabic letters.)

Thank you so much, I really do appreciate any help, this just didn't work for me as I would have liked.


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## elroy

Hi Suki,

Unfortunately, your Arabic sentence makes no sense indeed (but let's give the thread a better title than that ).  If you hadn't offered the English original, I would have had no idea what you were trying to say.

Here's a translation suggestion: 

نصلي أن تشاركنا الكنيسة بسخاء بلا حدود ما أنعم به الله عليها من هدايا

The English sentence is a prayer to God, that the church demonstrate unfailing generosity by sharing the gifts He has bestowed on her (presumably with the supplicants).

The correct spelling of "tuSallii" (which wouldn't work here because it's the second person singular masculine or the third person singular feminine, and we want the first person plural) is تصلي.


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## SuKi*~

elroy said:


> Hi Suki,
> 
> Unfortunately, your Arabic sentence makes no sense indeed (but let's give the thread a better title than that ).


 
Haha, sure ~_^ (Sorry about that!)



elroy said:


> Here's a translation suggestion:
> 
> نصلي أن تشاركنا الكنيسة بسخاء بلا حدود ما أنعم به الله عليها من هدايا
> 
> The English sentence is a prayer to God, that the church demonstrate unfailing generosity by sharing the gifts He has bestowed on her (presumably with the supplicants).
> 
> The correct spelling of "tuSallii" (which wouldn't work here because it's the second person singular masculine or the third person singular feminine, and we want the first person plural) is تصلي.


 
I KNEW IT WAS A WORD! *dies* [/outburst] THANK you. That would've bothered me for months.  And yes, I see how it's wrong now.

First off, you are officially my favorite person of the day. Thanks for helping, despite how gross my skills. 

Ugh, it's amazing how much more cohesive that sentence is. I have a question though; for the part highlighted in purple, would it be wrong to use "madda" in this case (or the correct conjugation of that verb, rather)? (By the way, I just realized I left the remains of my first attempt at spelling that word formally in the text without fixing it. Oops. Sorry.)

Again, thanks for the help. I really appreciate this.


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## elroy

I would not use that verb in this context.


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## SuKi*~

great!  I know what to work on now - thanks so much!


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## cherine

elroy said:


> نصلي أن تشاركنا الكنيسة بسخاء بلا حدود ما أنعم به الله عليها من هدايا


I have a couple of comments, I hope you don't mind  :
- It's true that "gifts" means هدايا, but to my knowledge the word used in such context (Christian) is 3aTaaya عطايا , singular 3aTiyya عطية .
- Why did you translate "unfailingly generous" as بسخاء بلا حدود ?


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## elroy

Of course I don't mind your valuable comments! 





cherine said:


> - It's true that "gifts" means هدايا, but to my knowledge the word used in such context (Christian) is 3aTaaya عطايا , singular 3aTiyya عطية .


 Good point - something bothered me about هدايا but at the time I couldn't think of a better word. 


> - Why did you translate "unfailingly generous" as بسخاء بلا حدود ?


 Why not? "Unfailing generosity" is pretty much the same as "limitless generosity." Do you have a better suggestion?


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## cherine

elroy said:


> Of course I don't mind your valuable comments! Good point - something bothered me about هدايا but at the time I couldn't think of a better word.


Thank you 


> Why not? "Unfailing generosity" is pretty much the same as "limitless generosity." Do you have a better suggestion?


My mistake.. I think I misunderstood "unfailingly"  

Now I don't have a better translation, but I'd prefer something like بسخاء غير محدود to avoid the two "bi" بسخاء بلا (just for the sound, not because it's incorrect).


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## elroy

Another possibility might be بسخاء دائم.


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## suma

Here's my crack at Christian liturgy, with benefit of Cherine's and Elroy's prior attempts

أن تشارك معنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم، وبذلك نصلي آمين


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## elroy

Good suggestion, although I'm not sure you can start with the أن clause like that in Arabic. 





suma said:


> أن تشاركنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم، ولذلك نصلي آمين


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## cherine

suma said:


> أن تشارك معنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم، وبذلك نصلي آمين​


 
VERY GOOD  Even if the order needs to be changed as Elroy said.
I loved very much عطايا الرب it sounds very Christian to me.​


elroy said:


> أن تشاركنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم، ولذلك نصلي آمين


Yes تشاركنا is more correct.
But بذلك goes more with نصلي أن which you proposed. Whil لذلك means that when changing the sentence order, we'd better say نصلي لكي .

Anyway, here's my take based on Elroy's and Suma's suggestion :​
نصلي كي تشاركنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم. آمين
ندعو الرب أن تشاركنا الكنيسة عطاياه بسخاء دائم آمين
​


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## ayed

Well, let me try :
*نصلي لتشاطرنا/لتشاركنا الكنيسة وتغدقنا بعطايا/بهبات الله*
*نصلي لتشاطرنا/لتشاركنا الكنيسة وتجزل لنا من هبات الله*

Notice that the two verbs(*تغدق*)and(*تجزل*)mean "to give in ample quantity .Thus, (*بسخاء-بلا حدود*) are included .
This is my own suggestion.
Your views over my comments are appreciated .
Thank you all


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## elroy

cherine said:


> But بذلك goes more with نصلي أن which you proposed.​


Are you sure? نصلي بذلك sounds wrong to me, at least in this context. We always say نصلي لذلك to mean "we pray *for that*."​



> نصلي أن تشاركنا الكنيسة عطايا الرب بسخاء دائم. آمين
> ندعو الرب أن تشاركنا الكنيسة عطاياه بسخاء دائم آمين​


I like أن better than كي in the first sentence.
The second sentence I don't like at all - sorry!


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## cherine

I meant that وبذلك نصلي is better than ولذلك نصلي in that structure, because it means something like : we say that in our prayer, while لذلك نصلي means : we pray for that.
This in case we keep this part in the end of the sentence.

But in the case of the other order نصلي أن it's of course a different thing.
And I respect your opinion, of course, concerning the most proper use in Christian prayers


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## elroy

cherine said:


> I meant that وبذلك نصلي is better than ولذلك نصلي in that structure, because it means something like : we say that in our prayer, while لذلك نصلي means : we pray for that.
> This in case we keep this part in the end of the sentence.


 Ah - I see what you mean now. 

But it doesn't much matter in the end anyway, because we both agree that it would be strange in Arabic to begin with the أن clause.


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## suma

cherine said:


> VERY GOOD  Even if the order needs to be changed as Elroy said.
> 
> I loved very much عطايا الرب it sounds very Christian to me.​


 
Yes I thought it sounded more  Christian to me too, that's why I used it istead of Allah, although Christian Arabs also use Allah.


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## cherine

suma said:


> Yes I thought it sounded more Christian to me too, that's why I used it istead of Allah, although Christian Arabs also use Allah.


Not only the use of Rabb instead of Allah, but also the use of 3aTaaya; i.e. the whole structure 
Muslims would say : نِعم الله ni3am 'laah.


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## mujahid7ia

What does عطايا mean? Synonym of نعم?


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## elroy

mujahid7ia said:


> What does عطايا mean? Synonym of نعم?


 Gifts - from the verb أعطى ("to give").  The singular is عطية.


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## cherine

mujahid7ia said:


> What does عطايا mean? Synonym of نعم?


Yes. 3aTiyya, ni3ma and hiba are all synonyms and mean "gift. The first two are usually used in religious context to mean gifts from God. Yet, we can see them sometimes in different contexts, but almost always with the connotation of a gift from "above"  like عطايا الملك gifts from the king.
I can't say that a friend gave me عطية or a نعمة it would sound very odd.


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## mujahid7ia

Thanks for the explanation.


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## elroy

In the Christian context نعمة usually means "grace," but the plural form - نعم - is used often to mean "gifts."


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## SuKi*~

wow, so many comments! 

mostly, all the things i'm about to ask about are specfically catholic, I guess, wordings. I don't know who's Catholic and who's not, so I'll explain.

- starting with the "that" أن , the basis of this prayer is a part of the Catholic mass that i guess you would call a list. Something like this.
we pray for the following things:
- that god may *enter something here*, we pray.
*whole church responds with a sentence to confirm they're praying for this*
- that the church may *enter something here*, we pray.
*respond again*

and etc, etc. this goes on for a few petitions, and then we say one prayer at the end of it. That is the only reason I'd start with "that", instead of "we pray that", because I agree, it sounds awkward otherwise. Are there any Catholics who can confirm how it's done in Arabic mass?

- next thing would be the word الطائفة  versus the word elroy and a few others suggested,  الكنيسة . I'm not sure how Muslims refer to this ideal, but when Catholics say "the church", it can mean the actual building, and it can also mean the entire Catholic community as a whole. The first word sounds a little weird to me only because I don't think it specifically means the "Catholic church", as opposed to "the branch of the religion", I guess, if that makes sense. The second word, though, is used for the actual building, right? I could be completely wrong here, but that's been a question I keep asking.

Thanks for all the resonse, guys; I really, really appreciate this.


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## elroy

I'm not Catholic so I don't know if it's common to start a sentence with أن in Catholic mass.

As for the second question, طائفة means "denomination" and كنيسة means "church."  Yes, it can refer to the actual building but it can also have all the other meanings "church" has in English.


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