# Levantine Arabic: كان kaan



## WannaBFluent

السلام عليكم

I have read this thread, but I wanted to make a different one, because it was all about MSA.

I am trying to list the *different meanings* that the verb *kaan *is used to express, by *complementing another (main) verb* in Levantine Arabic.
I have found these forms:

1. kaan + 3am yektob = he was + he is writing → kaan 3am yektob _*he was writing*_

2. kaan + ra7 yektob = he was + he is going to write → kaan ra7 yektob _*he was going to write*_

3. kaan + katab = he was + he wrote → kaan katab _*he had written*_

4. kaan + byektob = he was + he writes + drop the b- → kaan yektob _*he used to write*_ (past time sense)

5. kaan + byektob = he was + he writes → kaan byektob *he would write* (hypothetical sense)

6. bikuun + 3am yektob = he will be + he is writing → bikuun 3am yektob _*he will be writing*_

7. bikuun + katab = he will be + he wrote → bikuun katab _*he will have written*_

8. kaan + maa + btektob = it was + not + it writes → kaan maa btektob _*it could not be written*_ *(not sure)*

Do you know other ones? Thanks for sharing your knowledge


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## analeeh

A lot of these don't really line up with English equivalents exactly. A lot of the time English 'would' or the French conditional are used to make statements about disposition, but in Arabic these expressions are often in the present. Your last one is most similar to ما بينكتب which often means 'should not' or 'could not be written'. Your last one would just mean, probably, she didn't write.


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## badde

analeeh said:


> A lot of these don't really line up with English equivalents exactly.



That's what I've read.

To the OP, you might be interested in this dissertation on the Grammar of the Beirutian Language. It covers the topic extensively. Check out the _Verb kēn_ section. (That's how you pronounce it in Lebanese.) I think it's what you're looking for. It lists all the different tenses that use _kaan_ (_kēn_ in Lebanese). But it looks like the examples were made to fit the English tenses, so 3/4 of them are probably never actually used in Arabic. Even as I was reading the paper, I couldn't really wrap my head around some of them.

I have an example re: what *analeeh *said: Arabic/English tenses don't exactly line up. It from a Levantine book. It concerns Arabic conditionals, and it confirms what *analeeh* said about _would _statements being in the Present Tense in Arabic.











_e_ means _If I become rich..._ (_biSiir_)

_f_ means _If I became rich... _(_Saar_)

Two completely different meanings in English.

The first one is more likely to happen in English. I could become rich in the first sentence given certain conditions, eg. I could win the lottery, I could make partnership at my firm, I could be promoted, or whatever. It's a possibility.

In the second sentence, it's more like hypothesizing. The likelihood of it happening isn't that great, but it's still nice to hypothetically consider it. It's like you're sitting on your broke ass thinking "If I became rich, I'd leave this dump behind..."

It's not even remotely the same meaning.

But apparently some natives don't perceive a difference in meaning since Arabic doesn't distinguish between so many different tenses (or aspects). Or at least they aren't commonly used.

It also confirms what *analeeh* said about Arabic expressions with the meaning of _would _being in the Present Tense (_biSiir _is preferable to_ Saar_).

The first sentence is more akin to "if it _will_/_does_ happen", the second one is more akin to "if it _would_/_did_ happen." But apparently natives prefer the first one for _would_. They prefer the one in the Present Tense, like* analeeh* said.

I think it could be similar with _kēn _(_kaan_). I think probably the different tenses don't always correspond.

But let's see what the natives have to say.

EDIT:

From what I've seen, Arabic tenses match the English tenses only up to a certain point. It's not so easy to construct -- for example -- a Future Perfect Continuous sentence in Arabic, i.e. _Will have been [verb]ing_. But I'm not sure you need to because from what I've seen this is expressed in Arabic using a less complicated structure that is somehow made to carry this more complicated meaning. What this structure is, I don't know: _raa7 3am_/_raayi7_? I may be wrong, but from what I've seen Arabic simplifies those more complex structures and expresses them using simpler structures.

In my example, _Will have been [verb]ing_ basically means _to be doing something in the future_, so it could be replaced by _I will be doing_ (_raayi7_) or _I am going to be doing (ra7 3am ba3mel)_? Instead of using Future Perfect Continuous you could use _raayi7_ or_ ra7 3am_. I think it would be easier to use them because they seem to have a more fixed conjugation that seems to actually be used. But I'm not a native, so I don't know if these sound natural. This is just a hypothesis: colloquial Arabic seems to express complex structures using simpler structures.

And it's not 100% true either that Arabic tenses correspond to the English ones.

For example:

_byektob _= Present Simple = no equivalent of _keen_ in the Present Simple tense
_3am byektob_ = Present Continuous = 3am ykuun/active participle _faa3el _or_ raayi7_ may be used instead
_katab_ = Past Simple = _keen
keen 3am_ _byektob_ = Past Continuous = _keen 3am ykuun
raa7 yektob_ = Future Simple = _raa7 ykuun
raa7 3am yektob_ = Future Continuous = _raa7 3am ykuun
Sarlo _= Present Perfect = ?

(These could be wrong. Feel free to correct.)

And then it gets more and more complicated until I'm sure anymore which conjugation of _keen_ (perfect or imperfect?) goes with which conjugation of the verb (perfect or imperfect?), and it becomes a mess. Natives probably see it differently, but that's how I see it.

Ps. Marking long vowels is a bit of a hassle for me because I'm so used to writing in chat-speak, where no distinction is made between long and short vowels or regular and emphatic consonants. It looks a bit weird to me to write _nees_ instead of _nes_ or _keen_ instead of _ken_, especially since_ ee_ could be mistaken for a _yaa _when it's not_. It's_ an_ alef, i.e. _a long_ aa_ that is pronounced as _e_ in Lebanese. But I'm not sure how else to write it. Plus, I may still sometimes miss certain long vowels and emphatic consonants because I'm so used to writing them the chat-speak way. Sorry for this.


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## WannaBFluent

Uh uh uuuhh! Now you've triggered my curiosity!!! 



analeeh said:


> A lot of these don't really line up with English equivalents exactly.





badde said:


> And it's not 100% true either that Arabic tenses correspond to the English ones.





badde said:


> Arabic tenses match the English tenses only up to a certain point. It's not so easy to construct -- for example -- a Future Perfect Continuous sentence in Arabic, i.e. _Will have been [verb]ing_. But I'm not sure you need to because from what I've seen this is expressed in Arabic using a less complicated structure that is somehow made to carry this more complicated meaning. What this structure is, I don't know: _raa7 3am_/_raayi7_? I may be wrong, but from what I've seen Arabic simplifies those more complex structures and expresses them using simpler structures.


So If I understand you correctly, Arabs use substitute forms to explain the English complex ones? This seems weird to me as I don't really find the complexity in the forms above!
I thought that the forms : *3am + IMP SUBJ* and *raa7 + IMP SUBJ* was overused in Arabic and very very common in everyday speech.
So by extrapolation, the forms *kaan 3am + IMP SUBJ* and *kaan raa7 + IMP SUBJ* would be very common as well...

Or maybe you were talking about these forms, which I found a bit more complex?


WannaBFluent said:


> bikuun 3am yektob _*he will be writing*_





WannaBFluent said:


> bikuun katab _*he will have written*_



-----


badde said:


> But it looks like the examples were made to fit the English tenses, so 3/4 of them are probably never actually used in Arabic.





badde said:


> But apparently some natives don't perceive a difference in meaning since Arabic doesn't distinguish between so many different tenses (or aspects). Or at least they aren't commonly used.


Hmm.. I think I understand here what you meant, because we do the same thing in French. Let me explain, and tell me if Arabs have the same concept.
For example,
*he **has written *would be literally translated in French as *il a écrit *which is a very common form in French.
*he wrote *would be literally translated in French as *il écrivit *which is a form called _Passé Simple_, and it is rarely used, *NOBODY would say this colloquially*, it is only (and nowaday, rarely) used in written French.

So basically, when we want to translate English to French,
he has written = *il a écrit*
he wrote = *il a écrit*
So we lose the subtle meaning difference (if there's one).

Do Arabs would translate like this?
he has written = *huwwe katab*
he wrote = *huwwe katab*
Losing the subtle meaning difference as well?

But, still, in French we make the difference between,
he has written/he wrote = il a écrit
he *had *written = il *avait *écrit
But maybe Arabs don't make the difference in their dialects so,
*huwwe kaan katab* would be the same than *huwwe katab*?


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## badde

WannaBFluent said:


> So If I understand you correctly, Arabs use substitute forms to explain the English complex ones? This seems weird to me as I don't really find the complexity in the forms above!
> I thought that the forms : *3am + IMP SUBJ* and *raa7 + IMP SUBJ* was overused in Arabic and very very common in everyday speech.
> So by extrapolation, the forms *kaan 3am + IMP SUBJ* and *kaan raa7 + IMP SUBJ* would be very common as well...
> 
> Or maybe you were talking about these forms, which I found a bit more complex?
> 
> bikuun 3am yektob _*he will be writing*_
> 
> bikuun katab _*he will have written*_



Yeah, I meant forms like _Will have written_ or _Would have written_ where you can find a simpler structure with a similar meaning to express this more complex meaning.

For example, when you learn English, I would imagine that the teacher tells you that:

Past Perfect = _had_ with a Perfect verb + Past Simple

Past Perfect = _had_ + Perfect verb (for the 1st thing that happened), Past Simple (for the 2nd thing that happened)

eg.

_I went to the party after I had written the letter._

_Had _+_ Perfect verb (had written)_ is used for the thing that happened first and Past Simple (_went_) is used for the thing that happened afterwards.

But you could just as well express the same meaning using only Past Simple:

_I wrote the letter and then I went to the party._

Or like this:

_I went to the party after writing the letter._

Or:

_I went to the party after having written the letter._

Here's something I've noticed on Twitter: I've been following a few Arab singers for a while and they seem to rarely use Present Perfect (_I have been_) or Past Perfect (_I had been_), or any other more complex English tenses (aspects). When writing in English, they seem to always use Past Simple for _all_ past actions: I went, I did, I saw, I celebrated, I met, etc.

And I think this is what colloquial Arabic does: it simplifies the more complex tense to its less complex equivalent.

So I think you'd be more likely to say this sentence in colloquial Arabic using Past Simple, rather than Past Perfect:

_ana katab(e)t el risele w ba3den re7et 3al 7afle_

or

_ana re7et 3al 7afle ba3d ma katab(e)t el risele_

Given this, I think you'd be more likely to express _had written _in Arabic just using _katab_. The meaning of a finished action is similar in Past Perfect and Past Simple, but you usually express a finished action in Arabic using a Perfect verb (_katab_), so:
_
ana katab(e)t = I wrote/had written (a finished past action)
_
It looks like colloquial Arabic reduces a more complex tense to its simpler equivalent: here, Past Perfect to Past Simple.

So my hypothesis is that colloquial Arabic sort of "reduces" more complex structures to their simpler equivalent.

But like I said, this is a learner's hypothesis. You'll need a native to confirm or deny this.

The same for the French examples. A native is better equipped to confirm or deny them.


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## analeeh

Actually, I wasn't talking about conditionals - I was talking about how the English conditional is used to show disposition, whereas Arabic often uses the present.

I think there is a difference between _iza kaan_ and _iza bikuun_ or whatever - _iza ija_ means 'if he happens to come (he might, but he probably won't)', _iza biji_ means 'if he comes (he might or he might not, I am not expressing any judgement on the likelihood of him coming)'. Both are what are called in English 'open conditionals', i.e. ones where the possibility of them happening is relevant to the conversation and 'open', rather than closed conditionals, which tend more towards the hypothetical.

_iza_ + past can also be an open conditional in the past tense - _iza Tile3 imbaar7a bikuun wiSel ilyoom_ 'if he left yesterday then he'll've arrived today'. You can see the same structure in the English (where if + past is usually used for hypotheticals but not here).

_law ija_ means 'if he came'. Of course there's a bit of overlap between them in some contexts, but Arabic definitely distinguishes between hypothetical if and open if.

I think to be honest explaining all of the semantic differences between English verb structure and Arabic verb structure is too much for a forum thread - but there's a good introduction in Cowell's grammar.

Edit: the reason Arabic speakers often say things like 'I didn't forget' or 'I forgot' instead of 'I've forgotten' - i.e. not using the perfect in English - is because there is no real present perfect in Arabic. For most perfect sentences like this you either use a participle (_nisyaan_) or a past verb (_nsiit_).

I don't think most English speakers would use 'having written the letter' in that context either. The past perfect is generally used for adding previous-to-the-story information which is relevant but not part of a sequential narrative. Arabic does have this too. It also often uses past _kaan_ to add a hypothetical dimension, as in _in kaan Saar_ 'if that WERE to happen' or _kint b7ebb Dall ma3ak aktar_ 'I'd have liked to stay with you more [but]', etc etc.


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## WannaBFluent

badde said:


> Here's something I've noticed on Twitter: I've been following a few Arab singers for a while and they seem to rarely use Present Perfect (_I have been_) or Past Perfect (_I had been_), or any other more complex English tenses (aspects). When writing in English, they seem to always use Past Simple for _all_ past actions: I went, I did, I saw, I celebrated, I met, etc.
> 
> And I think this is what colloquial Arabic does: it simplifies the more complex tense to its less complex equivalent.


Ok, I guess I got you, that makes sense that a Colloquial Language prefers using simple structure.


badde said:


> The same for the French examples. A native is better equipped to confirm or deny them.


I'm actually native French 


analeeh said:


> _law ija_ means 'if he came'. Of course there's a bit of overlap between them in some contexts, but Arabic definitely distinguishes between hypothetical if and open if.


Talking about law, I saw on the Grammar of the Beirutian Language, that badde shared above, the following:




If I understand correctly *kaan katabhon* كان كتبهون can mean both *he had written them*, and *he would/might/could have written them*, which is an equivalent to *law enta katabton*? So, I guess that *kaan + past* can mean the same thing than *law + past*.
That's right? The presentation in this book is kinda unclear to me 

I guess that's what you said here analeeh,


analeeh said:


> It also often uses past _kaan_ to add a hypothetical dimension, as in _in kaan Saar_ 'if that WERE to happen' or _kint b7ebb Dall ma3ak aktar_ 'I'd have liked to stay with you more [but]', etc etc.



edit: I've come across an interesting sentence in Cowell's book:
kəll ma *kaan ifakker* fiiha *kaan yətkarkar*
everytime *he thought* about it, he *would chuckle*

*edit2: *Also, I have read in the Grammar of the Beirutian language this:



> 1. kēn + past stem:





> It has two designations depending on context:
> 1. Pluperfect: E.g.: kēn katab he had written
> 2. Past perfect *possibility where the action could have been accomplished in the past*.
> E.g.: kēn katabon, lawma enta katabton he would/might/could have written them, hadn‘t you written them


And



> 3. kēn + present I:





> It designates *a general possibility where the act could be done at any time*.
> E.g.: kēn byektebon eza baddak he would/might/could write them if you want


Let's imagine you are with your family, spending a nice time on a tropical south Indian beach. It starts to be late, so you want to go back to the hotel, you pick up all your stuff, you start walking. Your wife tells you:
"Seriously, you such a moron! *You could have parked the car closer to the beach!* Now it's too late! we have to walk all the way to get in it!

Now imagine you have a smarter wife! (lol)
You are in the car, you finally find a small place to park your huge Hummer (not easy right?) but you still have to do a very difficult parallel park (oh!) and then your wife tells you:
"Seriously, you such a moron! *You could park the car closer to the beach!* It's not to late to fix that! Come on! Restart the car and go closer!"
(Of course, she told you that, after you finally succeed that extremely difficult parallel park!)

So in the first case, it would be kaan + *perfect*
And in the second one, kaan + *imperfect indicative*
Correct?

Can someone translate those two example sentences for me, so I can add them in my notes and never forget this subtle difference in meaning.
1. You could have finished your homeworks before coming to class, now it's too late, the professor will punish you.
2. You could go to the cinema before the film starts, it's not too late!


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## badde

analeeh said:


> Actually, I wasn't talking about conditionals - I was talking about how the English conditional is used to show disposition, whereas Arabic often uses the present.



Okay, I misunderstood.

Here's what you said:



analeeh said:


> A lot of the time English 'would' or the French conditional are used to make statements about disposition, but in Arabic these expressions are often in the present.



Here's what I understood:

A lot of the time English 'would' or the French conditional are used to make statements about disposition, but in Arabic these expressions (English 'would' or the French conditional) are often used in the present [tense].​
So I gave an example of an English 'would' expression used in Arabic in the Present Tense. It happened to be a conditional.

But it doesn't matter because my example with the two conditionals was just that: an example used to support my point. Which was that English and Arabic tenses don’t always line up.



analeeh said:


> I don't think most English speakers would use 'having written the letter' in that context either.



It’s possible that most English speakers would not use it, but some American English speakers would.

Maybe this is similar to how some Arabic natives don't see much difference between _biSiir_ and _Saar_ in the conditionals I gave, but I don't see much difference between _after writing_ and _after having written_. Both are finished past actions, and _after_ implies that another actions follows. Or actually I do see a difference. The difference being that I'd be more likely to use _after having written_ for Past Perfect because as I understand it _after having written _stresses this sense that the action _had been finished_ and another action _followed_, while _after writing_ implies that the action went on for some time, so it has more of a Continuous sense, as in _I had been writing_ and then _I went _to the party. So I actually think _after having written_ follows this sequential Past Perfect structure more closely.

But again, not the point. The point of these examples was to show that in English, too, it is possible to replace a more complex tense (Past Perfect) with a less complex tense (Past Simple).

Similarly, the conditionals were an example of a simpler tense replacing a slightly more complex tense in colloquial Arabic, all the while retaining the meaning of this more complex tense.

All examples of my original point: English and Arabic tenses don’t always correspond.

On the divergence between Arabic and English tenses, a Palestinian book has _will have been_ as _7a ykuun _+ _maaDi_:






Meanwhile, a different book has it as _ykuun_ + _maaDi_. Not sure which dialect this book is in because sometimes it looks like Levantine and sometimes it looks like Egyptian:






And in _Grammar of the Beirutian Language_ it's given as the more Lebanese future particle _raa7_ + _ykuun_ + _maaDi_:






And here the author agrees with me that Past Simple can sometimes be used instead of Past Perfect because the Past Tense verb in Arabic can express all past tenses:










Which of course doesn't mean that you can't use the following structure for Past Perfect. It's the same structure *WannaBFluent* gave:








analeeh said:


> Edit: the reason Arabic speakers often say things like 'I didn't forget' or 'I forgot' instead of 'I've forgotten' - i.e. not using the perfect in English - is because there is no real present perfect in Arabic. For most perfect sentences like this you either use a participle (_nisyaan_) or a past verb (_nsiit_).



It does look like it in this example which uses a Past verb for the Perfect tense:






EDIT:

Here, TeamMaha briefly mentions Present Perfect in colloquial Levantine:

The past can also be used to translate all (or almost all) English present perfect constructions, like ‘I have seen’ or ‘I have forgotten’ (although these can often also be translated by active participles).

_أخذت akhad@t – _I’ve taken
اتخذت _ittakhaz@t – _I’ve taken (a decision)
درست_ darras@t _– I’ve studied
أخذته _akhadto –_ I’ve taken
اتخذت القرار _ittakhazt ilqaraar_ – I’ve taken the decision​
I think it agrees with what *analeeh* said. Unless I misunderstood what *analeeh* said.

And I think it answers one of *WannaBFluent*'s French-Arabic questions:



WannaBFluent said:


> *he **has written *would be literally translated in French as *il a écrit *which is a very common form in French.
> *he wrote *would be literally translated in French as *il écrivit *which is a form called _Passé Simple_, and it is rarely used, *NOBODY would say this colloquially*, it is only (and nowaday, rarely) used in written French.
> 
> So basically, when we want to translate English to French,
> he has written = *il a écrit*
> he wrote = *il a écrit*
> So we lose the subtle meaning difference (if there's one).
> 
> Do Arabs would translate like this?
> he has written = *huwwe katab*
> he wrote = *huwwe katab*
> Losing the subtle meaning difference as well?



But as usual, I'd wait for a native to confirm this.

Here's a related thread on tenses in Lebanese Arabic that talks about comparing French to Arabic.



WannaBFluent said:


> I'm actually native French



So I've noticed. Ca va? 

I meant that an Arabic native who also knows French is better equipped to comment on your French examples. 

Like I said, I get the conjugation up until Past Perfect (_keen _+ Perfect verb) and then it all becomes foggy and unclear and I'm not so sure anymore which conjugation of _keen_ to use with which conjugation of the verb. And books aren't much help either because they give different conjugations.


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## WannaBFluent

badde said:


> And I think it answers one of *WannaBFluent*'s French-Arabic questions:


Yeah, it seems 



badde said:


> Like I said, I get the conjugation up until Past Perfect (_keen _+ Perfect verb) and then it all becomes foggy and unclear and I'm not so sure anymore which conjugation of _keen_ to use with which conjugation of the verb. And books aren't much help either because they give different conjugations.


I agree with you, once you compared two different books, you clearly notice this is just a huge hudgepodge!


So, according to your experience, what is the most common way to explain a conditionnal in Levantine?


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## analeeh

This is getting out of the territory of the thread, but it depends a lot on the type of conditional. I can't cite and copy and paste scans from different textbooks, so I'll just tell you my impressions from a long time of living with native speakers.

Conditionals of a straightforwardly 'if I do X then X will' and 'if I did X then X would' are called 'open' (possible) and 'closed' (hypothetical) conditionals. Open conditionals in French are formed with _si_ + the present tense or past tense, whilst closed conditionals are formed with _si_ + the imperfect. They exist on a spectrum of likelihood. In MSA open conditionals are largely handled by _idhaa_ and _in, _closed (hypothetical) conditionals by _law. _The 'if' clause (the protasis) is *always in the past tense (the perfective)*, whilst the 'then' clause (the apodosis) can be in *any tense, depending on the actual time of the action concerned, *although more hypothetical cases often take the past tense.

In Syrian Arabic, in my experience, conditionals of the first type which are considered particularly possible have a protasis ('if-clause') followed by a *tense which lines up with the actual time of the action described*. Most of the time, this will be in the 'nonpast' tense (the 'imperfect' as it's sometimes called) denoting a future event:

_iza biji bukra bitshuufo - _if he comes tomorrow you'll see him

Note that the apodosis (the then-clause) is *also in a tense which lines up with the actual time of the event*.

Sometimes the action referred to will have already passed - as in 'if he left yesterday, then he'll have arrived'. In this case the verb will also be in the past:

_iza Téle3 imbaar7a bikuun wéSel ilyoom_ - if he left yesterday then he'll have arrived today

However, even for future events, *often those which are considered less likely or where the speaker wants to leave the possibility of them not happening as open as possible*, the past tense can be used after _iza_ as in:

_iza kaan 3éndak wa2@t bukra mémkin 3arréfa 3aleek_ - if you happen to have time tomorrow I could introduce her to you (this leaves it very open for the listener to say 'oh no I don't have time', maybe more so than _iza 3éndak_)

Whether all speakers perceive there to be a difference here is another matter, but in any case, both forms generally translate to if + present tense clauses.

_kaan_ can often be used to add extra hypotheticality:

_iza kaan raa7... _- if he had gone

_in kaan Saar_ - if it were to happen (and it almost certainly won't)...

The most hypothetical statements can be formed with _law_, which is (almost?) always followed by the past tense (with the present tense it tends to mean 'I wish that' or 'if only'):

_law ként makaanak, be7ki ma3o_ - if I were you (in your place) I'd speak to him

_law ként jiit bakkiir kaan méshi l7aal_ - if you'd come early it would have worked out

Again the *apodosis can be in any tense.
*
Now, in English and French conditionals - which are used in the apodosis of conditional statements like this - also have lots of other uses like making requests seem less direct (as in _je voudrais_ instead of _je veux_ and 'I would like' instead of 'I want'). I don't think this is particularly common in Arabic.

They're also used to make broad statements about disposition, as in 'I wouldn't buy something like that'. Often the most idiomatic equivalent to this in Arabic is actually just a present tense:

_maa bédfa3 3aleyya heek mablagh!_ - I'd never pay that amount for it!
_ana bsaa3dak_ - I'll help you - _bikuun ktiir mnii7 Tab3an_ - that would be good

It doesn't take much thought to realise that this is probably related to the fact that the apodosis doesn't necessarily take an explicitly conditional structure.


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## WannaBFluent

analeeh said:


> _iza biji bukra bitshuufo - _if he comes tomorrow you'll see him





analeeh said:


> _iza Téle3 imbaar7a bikuun wéSel ilyoom_ - if he left yesterday then he'll have arrived today





analeeh said:


> iza kaan 3éndak wa2@t bukra mémkin 3arréfa 3aleek





analeeh said:


> _kaan_ can often be used to *add extra hypotheticality*:
> 
> _iza kaan raa7... _- if he had gone
> 
> _in kaan Saar_ - if it were to happen (and it almost certainly won't)...





analeeh said:


> _law ként makaanak, be7ki ma3o_ - if I were you (in your place) I'd speak to him
> 
> _law ként jiit bakkiir kaan méshi l7aal_ - if you'd come early it would have worked out


Hmmm, what I find interesting is that none of the example are made up with _kaan _as the only conditionnal word, so I guess it's rare, and the most common way to express the conditionnal is to add _iza_, _law _or _in_, which seems to be logic.
That was what I thought. Thanks for clarifying this.


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## WannaBFluent

Just a quick question, is there a difference between :
2ən maa 2əja إن ما أجا
and
2ən kaan maa 2əja إن كان ما أجا

According to Cowell, there is no difference and they are both translated as :
'if he doesn't come'
That would mean that you actually can't express a past conditional with إن


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## momai

WannaBFluent said:


> Just a quick question, is there a difference between :
> 2ən maa 2əja إن ما أجا
> and
> 2ən kaan maa 2əja إن كان ما أجا
> 
> According to Cowell, there is no difference and they are both translated as :
> 'if he doesn't come'


Hi,
The particle INN is not used in my dialect so I can't give you an accurate answer but I think that only the first one is commonly used while the second one is either just damascene or not used very much with the meaning given by you (I have even the feeling that the second one is wrong but I can't say for sure).


> That would mean that you actually can't express a past conditional with إن


I guess no, only LAW is used for Past Conditional.


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## analeeh

_in kaan Saar_ is the only time that I can think of this being used (I've never heard it in negative) and that was in Baab il 7aara, which is the most Damascene of all Damascenes. I agree that it does not have a possible past meaning. _in_ is not very common even in Damascene though I think.


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## momai

analeeh said:


> _in kaan Saar_ is the only time that I can think of this being used (I've never heard it in negative) and that was in Baab il 7aara, which is the most Damascene of all Damascenes. I agree that it does not have a possible past meaning. _in_ is not very common even in Damascene though I think.


That's also what I thought while reading the sentence.It is only in Baab elhara where you hear such constructions while in actual life nobody uses them.


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## WannaBFluent

Thanks a lot! That is good to know


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