# يوسفُ شارب أخوه القهوةَ



## yusufadam

Can someone please translate the following sentence please:

يوسفُ شارب اخوه القهوةَ


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## AndyRoo

Are you sure it's correct? It doesn't seem to make sense.


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## yusufadam

Yes, I just quoted it from my book. It's supposed to be an example of the اسم الفاعل acting like a verb in a sentence where the اسم الفاعل forms part of the predicate.


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## yusufadam

I thought it meant Yusuf drank his brothers coffee or Yusuf's brother drank the coffee.


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## AndyRoo

I'm not sure, but if it is شارِب (as opposed to شارَب ), which I suppose it is since it is talking about اسم الفاعل, perhaps it means:
"Yusuf - his brother is drinking the coffee", or in other words "Yusuf's brother is drinking the coffee".


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## screamerer

Hi yusufadam,


The closest I can think of is (and yes, I know it looks strange):

*Yusuf, his brother drinker of the coffee.*  (It's similar to: Yusuf's brother is drinker of the coffee)



However, you should go back to the book and check the harakat (الحركات\التشكيل).


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## barkoosh

It means "Yususf whose brother is drinking coffee". Please note that this construction, although correct, is not common nowadays. The more "natural" way to say it is: يوسف الذي يشرب أخوه القهوة


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## Tilmeedh

barkoosh said:


> It means "Yususf whose brother is drinking coffee". Please note that this construction, although correct, is not common nowadays. The more "natural" way to say it is: يوسف الذي يشرب أخوه القهوة



What does this revised sentence mean in English?

'Yusuf is the one drinking his brother's coffee,' perhaps?


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## analeeh

The intended reading is 'Youssef, whose brother is drinking [the] coffee'.

Although I'm surprised with the original sentence that it's not الشارب, since يوسف is definite. I would have read the original as a topic-comment sentence: 'Youssef, his brother is drinking the coffee'.


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## wriight

Reading the original as "Youssef, his brother is drinking the coffee" or maybe just "Youssef's brother is drinking the coffee" seems intuitive to me too. How do we tell if the original is meant to be read as if there's a definite relative clause? (And does that mean there'd be no difference between يوسف شاربٌ أخوه القهوةَ and يوسف الذي شاربٌ/الشارب أخوه القهوةَ?)


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## Ibn Nacer

Salut,



barkoosh said:


> It means "Yususf whose brother is drinking coffee". Please note that this construction, although correct, is not common nowadays. The more "natural" way to say it is: يوسف الذي يشرب أخوه القهوة





analeeh said:


> The intended reading is 'Youssef, whose brother is drinking [the] coffee'.
> 
> Although I'm surprised with the original sentence that it's not الشارب, since يوسف is definite. I would have read the original as a topic-comment sentence: 'Youssef, his brother is drinking the coffee'.



Why does the meaning of the sentence يوسفُ شارب أخوه القهوةَ would not be "_Youssef, his brother is drinking the coffee_" ? It seems to me that in this sentence the word شارب is predicate (khabar).

It seems to me that this sentence corresponds to يوسفُ يشرب أخوه القهوةَ rather than that : يوسف *الذي *يشرب أخوه القهوة (which has been translated by "Yususf whose brother is drinking coffee")

And the sentence يوسف *الذي *يشرب أخوه القهوة would rather correspond to يوسفُ *الشارب *أخوه القهوةَ because the article *ال* (in *الشارب*) has the meaning of the relative pronoun *الذي *:


يأتي  اسم الفاعل مقترناً  بــ[أل] ، أو يأتي  نكرة منونة .

&الصورة الأولى  :

إذا كان اسم الفاعل  مقترناً بـ ( أل ) عمل عمل فعله بلا شروط ، *وهنا [أل] تكون بمعنى الذي*

مصدر : اسم الفاعل


So I would say that :

1- يوسفُ شارب أخوه القهوةَ / يوسفُ يشرب أخوه القهوةَ ---> _"Yususf , his brother is drinking coffee"._

2- يوسفُ *ال**شارب* أخوه القهوةَ / يوسفُ *الذي *يشرب أخوه القهوةَ ---> "Yususf whose brother is drinking coffee".

The first is a complete sentence (mubtada' + khabar) unlike the second (noun + adjective) ...

What do you think ?


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## wannabe translator

Greetings,
My guess is that ’شارب’ here is meant for the verb ’شَارَبَ’, meaning 'drank with'. Yossuf drank coffee with his brother.
But then the sentence should be يوسفُ شَارَبَ أخاه القهوةَ, so I'm not entirely sure. Could it be that the author made a grammatical error there?


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## Ibn Nacer

Salut,
yusufadam said that ’شارب’ is a اسم الفاعل​
See message #3


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## Ghabi

wannabe translator said:


> Could it be that the author made a grammatical error there?


In classical Arabic the faa3il form can do a lot of things it can't do in modern Arabic, hence the strange sentence ...

Usually for this type of question (grammatical structures no longer in use) we just say "please see Wright xxx", where one will, of course, find our good friend Zayd beating someone (usually poor Amr).

Let's see:


> زَيْدٌ ضَارِبٌ أَبُوهُ أَخًا لِى _Zayd's father (_lit._ Zayd, his father) is beating (_or_ will beat) a brother of mine_
> 
> (Wright II §30)


At least Zayd's not beating Amr this time!


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## WadiH

The active participle does a lot of work in modern Arabic too.  We have يوسف شارب أبوه قهوة type sentences in our dialect.

زيد ضارب أبوه أخاً لي is a bit too convoluted though.  I doubt it occurs often in Classical Arabic even if it is correct.


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## Ghabi

Wadi Hanifa said:


> The active participle does a lot of work in modern Arabic too. We have يوسف شارب أبوه قهوة type sentences in our dialect.


I meant MSA by "modern Arabic" of course ... I wouldn't dare to drag in colloquial Arabic, which is _hopelessly_ more complicated ...


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