# Egyptian Arabic: I have been coming/going/playing...



## londonmasri

Hey all,
One thing that I have wanted to know for a long time is how to say

*I have been* _playing a lot_ ... (not I have played or I played).
E.g. I have been coming a lot lately

and also the negative, i.e. *I have not been* _playing a lot lately_

I have not been coming lately.

Many thanks in Advance.


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## Haroon

You may say : ...ظللت ألعب / أمارس اللعب لفترة طويلة ...ما زلت أتردد على هذا المكان كثيراً في الفترة الأخيرة ...Concerning the Negative :..لم أعد ألعب / أمارس اللعب كثيراً في الآونة الأخيرة .....لم أتردد  -على هذا المكان -أو لم أزر هذا المكان منذ فترةOf Course there are many better alternative translations , but , generally,the difference between  Present perfect Tense and Presnet perfect Continous ( in Arabic ) is made clear by using some additional words that clarify the sentences .


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## londonmasri

Many thanks, it is interesting what you say about just adding additional words to alter tense. 

Would it be possible to get this also in egyptian arabic? 
Shukran


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## Josh_

I don't know if I can give a natural Egyptian translation, but perhaps something like this:



londonmasri said:


> *I have been* _playing a lot_ ... (not I have played or I played).


بلعب كتير الأيام دي
_ bal3ab kitiir il-ayyam-di_


> E.g. I have been coming a lot lately


باجي كتير الإيام دي
_ baagi kitiir il-ayyam-di._


> and also the negative, i.e. *I have not been* _playing a lot lately_


مش بلعب كتير الأيام دي
_ mush bal3ab kitiir il-ayyam-di._



> I have not been coming lately.


مش باجي كتير الأيام دي 
_ mush baagi kitiir il-ayyam-di_

As you can see expressing the present perfect progressive is bit difficult in Arabic as there is not a specific tense for it.  So one can use a phrase such as الأيام دي , which literally means "these days," or Haroon's لفترة طويلة (for a long time) to approximate this tense.

In certain cases you could also use the structure بقى لي (or بقالي as it might be spelled in Egyptian) _ba2aali_, which literally means "(there has) elapsed to me."  For example:

_ba2aali wa2t kitiir bal3ab
_I have been playing for a long time.


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## londonmasri

Thanks for that Josh.

Thats an expression I have heard a lot (ba2aali) but never known what it meant.

nice one!


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## gaggi

Hi!
There is also this way in spoken Arabic:

كنت العب كتير
kunt al3ab ktir

means: I was playing a lot, or I used to play a lot.

The verb kan (كان) is very common to create a durative or habituative aspect.

I don't know how often it is used in Egyptian Arabic, but it is very common in Palestinian Arabic, as well as Syrian and Lebanese.. It is also used in written Arabic.


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## clevermizo

gaggi said:


> Hi!
> There is also this way in spoken Arabic:
> 
> كنت العب كتير
> kunt al3ab ktir
> 
> means: I was playing a lot, or I used to play a lot.



Yes, but this does not mean the same thing as "I have been coming/going/playing." This measures time from a certain point in the past and continues into the present. Many languages use the present tense+time adverbials to express this, such as is the case with colloquial Egyptian in this thread.


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## londonmasri

clevermizo said:


> Yes, but this does not mean the same thing as "I have been coming/going/playing."


 
...that's correct CM - kunt b'al3ab means 'I used to play/I was playing' as you pointed out gaggi.

But it doesn't express 'I have been playing a lot (lately).


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## cherine

This is getting a bit confusing to me, so here's a couple of dialogues, as examples, loosely translated:

- Where have you been lately?
feinak mesh baayen?
- I was working
kan 3andi shoghl ktiir/kont mashguul geddan

- what are you doing?
bete3mel eih?
- I'm working
bashtaghal

Edit:
I first wrote a sentence, then removed it, but I think it should be noted: 
I think context matters in this, along with the whole construction.

For example, with the verb ألعب I can't use the same forms I used with أشتغل so, the difference would be noted between:
- kan feenak el ayyaam elli faatet? (where have you been?)
- kont baSayyef/bal3ab (I was taking a summer vacation/playing)

- enta feen? (where are you?)
- baSayyef/bal3ab (I'm taking a summer vacation/playing)

Do you think that the verb كان is the key?
Didn't I tell you that I myself am getting confused here?


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## londonmasri

cherine said:


> This is getting a bit confusing to me, so here's a couple of dialogues, as examples, loosely translated:
> 
> - Where have you been lately?
> feinak mesh baayen?
> - I was working
> kan 3andi shoghl ktiir/kont mashguul geddan
> 
> - what are you doing?
> bete3mel eih?
> - I'm working
> bashtaghal


 
Thanks cherine, but what about this:

-Where have been lately?

- I haven't been going to the naadi a lot lately.

(I didn't go is 'Ma ru7tish'/ 'I wasn't going alot' is makuntish baruu7) but what about 'I have not been going'.


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## cherine

londonmasri said:


> -Where have been lately?
> - I haven't been going to the naadi a lot lately.
> 
> (I didn't go is 'Ma ru7tish'/ 'I wasn't going alot' is makuntish baruu7) but what about 'I have not been going'.


It's also makontesh baruu7 en-naadi ktiir el yomeen elli faatu
ما كنتش بروح النادي كتير اليومين اللي فاتوا


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## londonmasri

cherine said:


> It's also makontesh baruu7 en-naadi ktiir el yomeen elli faatu
> ما كنتش بروح النادي كتير اليومين اللي فاتوا


 
Ok thanks! Just to ask, is there a difference between _yomeen_ and _ayyam_? In MSA _yomeen _is 2 days, but I'm guessing that this is not the case in EA ?

Many thanks.


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## cherine

In Egyptian, yomeen literaly means 2 days, but it can also be used to mean _many_ days.
Same with most (if not all) words in dual forms: سنتين، بنتين، ولدين، قرشين (actually, ersheen قرشين is also a word for "money" in general: ma3aya ersheen معايا قرشين = I have some money).


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## gaggi

Still, regarding the "have been" - how about the use of the participle for this purpose?
example: I haven't been talking to him.
mush haki ma3o ana.
مش حاكي معه انا

What do you say?


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## clevermizo

gaggi said:


> Still, regarding the "have been" - how about the use of the participle for this purpose?
> example: I haven't been talking to him.
> mush haki ma3o ana.
> مش حاكي معه انا
> 
> What do you say?



Well I don't think they use the verb 7aka in Egypt to mean talk. In Levantine Arabic, I would translate _mish 7aaki ma3o_ as "I haven't spoken to him." This is not the same as "I haven't been speaking to him" which would be _mish 3am ba7ki ma3o _(or some variation thereof). This construction uses the present progressive tense. It's analogous to using the present tense in Egyptian, because they use their present tense for both the habitual and progressive meanings.

The participle for this verb (7aka) implies a completed action.


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## clevermizo

cherine said:


> This is getting a bit confusing to me, so here's a couple of dialogues, as examples, loosely translated:



The tense "have been X-ing" is very specific in English to actions which have started in the past and continue into the present. I think the translations that Josh gave above are probably the best, and my initial reaction was that Egyptian would use the regular present tense with some time words to describe this situation.

For example, if I wanted to translated the sentence "I have been working a lot this month" which implies that at the beginning of the month, I began to work a lot, and I continued, and even now I am still working a lot, I would _guess_ that in Egyptian Arabic you would just say:

Bashtaghal ketiir ish-shahr da
بشتغل كتير الشهر ده.


I think you may have gotten confused because points were brought up about the "was X-ing" or "used to X" tenses which use kaan كان, which is not the original topic of this thread. Obviously, you might use a كان -  construction if it were good in a certain context. And I think context is key, because many languages don't have a specific tense for this situation like English does, and so one may have to translate this construction in a context-specific way.


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## scetis

clevermizo said:


> The tense "have been X-ing" is very specific in English to actions which have started in the past and continue into the present. I think the translations that Josh gave above are probably the best, and my initial reaction was that Egyptian would use the regular present tense with some time words to describe this situation.
> 
> For example, if I wanted to translated the sentence "I have been working a lot this month" which implies that at the beginning of the month, I began to work a lot, and I continued, and even now I am still working a lot, I would _guess_ that in Egyptian Arabic you would just say:
> 
> Bashtaghal ketiir ish-shahr da
> بشتغل كتير الشهر ده.
> 
> 
> I think you may have gotten confused because points were brought up about the "was X-ing" or "used to X" tenses which use kaan كان, which is not the original topic of this thread. Obviously, you might use a كان -  construction if it were good in a certain context. And I think context is key, because many languages don't have a specific tense for this situation like English does, and so one may have to translate this construction in a context-specific way.



Thanks so much for clearing this us... I too have spent a long time trying to wrap my head around the 'have been x-ing' as you nicely put it. So after reading over this thread numerous times, I tried thinking of some more examples and came up with a couple that I'm having a hard time working through. 

One is, "I have been thinking about that."  and the other is "I have been wondering about that for a long time"... and just to clarify, one I would love to use a lot is, "We have been thinking about you guys a lot lately". 

Thanks...


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## cherine

I forgot to thank Clevermizo for explaining the "have been doing" tense 



scetis said:


> "I have been thinking about that." and the other is "I have been wondering about that for a long time"... and just to clarify, one I would love to use a lot is, "We have been thinking about you guys a lot lately".


I think that "have been thinking" and "have been wondering" could be translated the same way:
بَفَكَّر كتير في الموضوع دا/في الحكاية دي
You can add بقالي فترة (ba2ali fatra) before it to indicate that the action started since some time.

"Thinking about someone" is usually said as: فلان على بالي because بفكَّر في فلان would most probably be understood as love-related thinking.
So, "I have been thinking about you guys a lot lately" would be: بقالكو فترة على بالي ba2alko fatra 3ala baali, or انتو على بالي من مُدّة/فترة .


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## إسكندراني

You could also say
كنت عمّال افكّر فيها
عمّال افكّر فيكم اليومين دول يا جماعة
But it has connotations of some really intense/deep thinking!


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