# ain't



## TOUKA

Hi guys!

I was talking with my friend and said: I ain't got money. he told me not to say it and didn't explain why.

is there any equivalent in arabic dialects


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## elroy

"Ain't" is a colloquial, non-standard alternative to "am/is/are not." In my experience, non-native speakers of English tend to overuse this word - probably because they do not realize that it is not always a natural alternative to the standard forms - and it can sound _very _weird. I myself use the word, but only in a limited number of contexts, when I know that it won't sound weird. I would advise you to avoid using this word until you've developed a feel for when it sounds natural.

I don't think there's an exact equivalent in Arabic.


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## TOUKA

Many thanks!


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## Ghabi

Just want to add that "ain't" can also be an alternative of "hasn't/haven't" and "doesn't/don't".


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## TOUKA

yes but my friend told me not to say it because "good girls" are not supposed to talk like that; I don't know


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## Josh_

As far as an equivalent in Arabic I wanted to add that slang often cannot be directly translated as such into another language since the slang word in one language may not have an equivalent form in the other.  I cannot think of an Egyptian slang equivalent for "ain't," and honestly, I doubt there is one, mainly because Arabic does not require the verb "to be" in the present tense.


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## AbdulJabbar

Ain't used to be correct several hundred years ago, then fell out of fashion among educated people. I has come back several times, but always as an affectation (done to look "cool").

It's not rude or impolite, but makes you sound uneducated. But, occasionally educated people use it to emphasize that what there saying is an obvious or uncomplicated truth. 

E. g. if someone's having trouble completing a simple task, one might say "It ain't rocket science," meaning the task is simple, and that even someone who says "ain't" is smart enough to do it.

Like most culturally rich idioms, it's almost impossible for a non-native speaker to use it correctly. But use it sparingly, and it's good for a laugh.


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## elroy

AbdulJabbar said:


> Like most culturally rich idioms, it's almost impossible for a non-native speaker to use it correctly.


 Ain't that the truth.


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## clevermizo

In modern times, 'ain't' unfortunately brings with it a stigma of sorts of sounding less correct or uneducated. It is the normal negation of the copula and the auxiliaries "have" and "do" in certain sociolinguistic groups. Most educated members of such groups are able to code switch and use standard English "doesn't, haven't, isn't" when the occasion calls for it.

The reason why "ain't" sounds _very stilted and strange_ coming from a non-native speaker is because it is very specific to certain demographic groups, or certain regions of the English speaking world. Unfortunately there is no Arabic equivalent I can think of.  This is because all Arabic dialects are unstandardized - "mish" doesn't sound any less correct than "mush" or "mu" or any other variant. And no one would use "laysa" in their every day speech. Speakers of standard English do not typically use "ain't" in everyday speech and usually consider it to be "incorrect" and so are quick to point it out in non-native speakers. I agree with AbdulJabbar above that using "ain't" by people for whom it is not part of their sociolect/dialect (like me for example) is always an affectation - used for colorful effect, jocularisms, emphasis, etc. I would never use "ain't" in my normal unaffected speech. This sounding like "affectation" is another reason why it sounds strange from a non-native speaker: We expect them to speak standard English or to speak a "neutral" standard dialect. A non-native speaker for example speaking with a southern American accent would say really strange to most people because this accent is so regional and marked. 

I would say as a non-native speaker it is best to avoid it, unfortunately. That said, I really wish we could use "ain't" commonly especially because English lacks a nice contraction for "am not". Personally however, I have affected an adopted "y'all" into my speech because I feel it's awful that English lacks a plural "you". This too would sound weird to me from a non-native speaker.


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## TOUKA

I'm so lucky  many thanks to all of you


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## Xence

clevermizo said:


> Unfortunately there is no Arabic equivalent I can think of. This is because all Arabic dialects are unstandardized - "mish" doesn't sound any less correct than "mush" or "mu" or any other variant.


Oh, I think that مش (mush/mesh/mish) is widely used all over the Arab world. It could be a good equivalent of _ain't_.


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## elroy

Xence said:


> Oh, I think that مش (mush/mesh/mish) is widely used all over the Arab world. It could be a good equivalent of _ain't_.


 Were you joking?  مش is nowhere near a good equivalent.  It's far too neutral.


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## clevermizo

Xence said:


> Oh, I think that مش (mush/mesh/mish) is widely used all over the Arab world. It could be a good equivalent of _ain't_.



Definitely not. "ain't" has very specific contexts among standard English speakers as I described in my previous post . _Mish_ is as elroy said, much more very neutral. 

As a non-native speaker of Arabic, when I say "Ana mish (heek)" no one looks at me funny or thinks that I should rather be speaking in fus7a and saying "Ana lastu (kadhaalika)" (in fact the latter might warrant some funny looks).

A non-native speaker of English using "ain't" definitely gets a lot of weird looks among general speakers of standard English. The only occasion in which such a speaker wouldn't sound strange would be if they exclusively interacted with only speakers of the dialects of English that regularly use "ain't" - which is not impossible, but unlikely.


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## elroy

To me, it's not just about the social stigma (although that's certainly an important part of it).  I'm a reasonably educated English speaker, and I use "ain't" occasionally, like I did in Post 8.  To me, there are certain situations in which "ain't" is appropriate and natural - and doesn't suggest that the speaker has a poor educational background.  All of that adds to the complicated nature of the word and further reinforces the fact that مش is definitely not an Arabic equivalent - by no stretch.


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## clevermizo

elroy said:


> To me, there are certain situations in which "ain't" is appropriate and natural - and doesn't suggest that the speaker has a poor educational background.



I agree completely; I was mostly describing the general sociolinguistic status of the word. The stigma is less attached to "ain't" itself, but moreso to dialects of English (or at least American English) in which it is the only or the regularly used negative particle. Anyway, the stigma is real, and despite my attempts as a linguist and a scientist to be objective, when I hear non-native speakers use "ain't" it tends to make me wince a little.


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## elroy

clevermizo said:


> [...] when I hear non-native speakers use "ain't" it tends to make me wince a little.


 Oh, same here.  I've come across that phenomenon several times here in the forums (often in posts that are otherwise beautifully written), and it stuck out like a sore thumb every single time.


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## Ghabi

As a non-native speaker, I imagine that the only occasion that I would say "ain't" is when I wanna say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> I feel it's awful that English lacks a plural "you". This too would sound weird to me from a non-native speaker.



I thought "you" was originally used for the plural while the singular was actually "thou."


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## elroy

Wadi Hanifa said:


> I thought "you" was originally used for the plural while the singular was actually "thou."


 In old English, there were four different forms: "thou" (singular nominative), "thee" (singular objective), "ye" (plural nominative), and "you" (plural objective).

But nowadays, we use "you" for all of those, so what Clevermizo meant was that _in modern English _there is no separate pronoun for the plural.  (I guess you could also say that there is no separate pronoun for the singular.)

Anyway, I agree that "y'all" would sound funny coming from a non-native speaker.


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## clevermizo

elroy said:


> In old English, there were four different forms: "thou" (singular nominative), "thee" (singular objective), "ye" (plural nominative), and "you" (plural objective).



Actually this is modern(-ish?) English though the "thou"-forms are certainly obsolete in standard English . Also there are certainly more than 4 different forms (what about the possessives!). The forms are similar in Old English (there's also even a dual like in Arabic), but this will go rapidly off topic if I start talking about that.


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