# Egyptian: Unsure



## gsc

Is this used in Egypt or is there a better word?

English: unsure 
Transliteration: shaak 
Arabic: شاك 

_Example: I'm unsure how to say this _
_Example: I'm not sure if this is right. _


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## xebonyx

*Mish muta'akkida*.

But I don't know if these sentences are correct (i'm just basing it off of MSA and listening):

Mish muta'akkida kiif 'ool haga.
Mish muta'akkida iza haga saHiiH.

Let's wait for the native speakers.


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## Little_LIS

xebonyx said:


> Mish muta'akkida kiif 'ool haga.
> Mish muta'akkida iza haga saHiiH.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes,xebonyx  You are right, but this is in 3ameyya:
> 
> mish/mush muta'akida (for females)/muta'akid (for males).
> 
> In MSA,
> 
> lastu muta'akid لست متأكد
Click to expand...


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## xebonyx

> Yes,xebonyx  You are right, but this is in 3ameyya:
> 
> mish/mush muta'akida (for females)/muta'akid (for males).
> 
> In MSA,
> 
> lastu muta'akid لست متأكد


 
Sorry, I didnt explain myself clearly. I was saying that based on my knowledge of MSA and having listened to people speak the Egyptian dialect, I am able to use that combination to logically deduce how the sentence should be formed.


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## gsc

Thank you both.

So can I throw away my flashcard with شاك?
or perhaps this word can be used in another way?


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## Mahaodeh

It can be used for _in doubt/doubting/suspecting in_; but I've heard them say shaakik, not shaakk. ex. أنا شاكك أنه أنت اللي خدت الحاجة اللي بندور عليها = I suspect that you have taken the thing we are looking for. أنا شاكك في فلان = I am doubting fulaan (I think that he's a liar, not honest..etc.).


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## clevermizo

I assume the forms are:

(m) _ shaakek _
(f) _ shakka _
(pl) _ shakkiin _

I wouldn't throw away your flashcard entirely. Besides, the words "doubtful" and "unsure" don't mean the same thing anyway. There isn't necessarily an easy prefix "un-" that you can append to things; this is why the suggested translation for "unsure" has been simply "not sure."


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## gsc

Gosh that could be a bad mistake to make. Sounds like an accusation could be made when you are simply unsure of what was said.


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## gsc

Lingvosoft translates shaak as DUBIOUS.

Would it fit a sentence that goes something like
'I bought a CD off eBay but it is of dubious origin'.
meaning it may be a copy not the real thing.

Is the word applied to the object or to my feelings about it?


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## clevermizo

gsc said:


> Lingvosoft translates shaak as DUBIOUS.
> 
> Would it fit a sentence that goes something like
> 'I bought a CD off eBay but it is of dubious origin'.
> meaning it may be a copy not the real thing.
> 
> Is the word applied to the object or to my feelings about it?



I'm pretty sure شاكّ means that you have doubts about something. It's the active participle of the verb to "doubt" so it describes the speakers feelings rather than the thing doubted. If you're speaking about the thing, you can say مشكوك فيه to say it's doubted. So, اشتريت سيدي من إيبي ولكنه مشكوك في أصله，I suppose. I would guess that this works fine in Egyptian Arabic (with the necessary grammatical modifications).

Note, participles of the form فاعّ tend to get generalized back to فاعل in colloquial，so you have 7aabeb, 7aaTeT, shaakek, etc. The shadda returns in the feminine and the plural: howa shaakek, heya shakka, e7na shakkiin.


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## gsc

Thank you CleverMizo. I suspect I will use a simple route to say I'm not sure of something.

eg
انا مش متأكد لو حاكل في الفندق إنّهارده با ليل


I'm not sure if I will eat in the hotel tonight.

(just don't ask how long it took me to construct that sentence )


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## cherine

clevermizo said:


> If you're speaking about the thing, you can say مشكوك فيه to say it's doubted. So, اشتريت سيدي من إيبي ولكنه مشكوك في أصله，I suppose. I would guess that this works fine in Egyptian Arabic (with the necessary grammatical modifications).


There's no need for any modifications here 



gsc said:


> انا مش متأكد لو حاكل في الفندق إنّهارده با ليل
> 
> 
> I'm not sure if I will eat in the hotel tonight.


Very good, Gay! Just remember to use the feminine أنا مش متأكدة .

Using مش متأكد is the best equivalent for "unsure". Usually adjectives with the prefix "un" are better translated with مش + adj/noun. 
unsure مش متأكد
unclear مش واضح
unhappy مش مبسوط


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## clevermizo

cherine said:


> There's no need for any modifications here



Well, I guess I meant in the pronunciation because أصله would be _aSlo_ and not _aSlihi_, or _eshtareet_ and not _ishtaraytu_, etc. Although, I was not aware that the suffixed forms of لكنّ were common in colloquial Egyptian (lakenni, lakennak, etc.).


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## gsc

Dr.Susy said:


> mish/mush muta'akida (for females)/muta'akid (for males)


Now I have found the flashcard for SURE so I am visiting this thread again.

The card says a'kiid (I am assuming the ' is an attempt to help with pronounciation although, annoyingly, they don't give any transliteration guide) أكيد 

Can some-one explain to me why we would use muta'akid rather than just akid? Or is it optional?


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## Xence

Hi gsc,

_muta'akkid_ is only used with persons.
أنا *متأكد(ة)* - الشاهد *متأكد* من أقواله

_akiid_ is only used with abstract nouns.
هذا المنتوج من صنع مصري *أكيد* (_surefire_)
or
هذا أمر *أكيد* = That's _sure_
The previous sentence is often summarized in one word: أكيد


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## gsc

Thank you Xence.

Would it be true to say where-ever I see muta- if will be referring to a person? and why is this/its literal meaning?  

Usually the Egyptians seem to take the quickest route to say something


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## Xence

gsc said:


> Would it be true to say where-ever I see muta- if will be referring to a person?


 
No. I don't think so.
For example you may say:
بلد متطوِّر = a developed country
حيوان متوحِّش = a wild animal

As for the meaning of the prefix _muta_ (in fact the addition of the two letters مـ and تـ ) in order to obtain the form متفاعل  or متفعّل I prefer that another member explains it to you.


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## Mahaodeh

gsc said:


> Would it be true to say where-ever I see muta- if will be referring to a person? and why is this/its literal meaning?


 
No, it's not relevent at all as Xence explained. What you called "muta" is not a prefix in its own; I don't know how much you know about devriving words, but to understand how it works you need to learn a little bit of fuS7a صَرْف.

Mutawa77ish, as an example, is اسم فاعل of the verb تَوَحَّشَ = tawa77asha; the form is مُتَفَعِّل, for each verb you have what is called "ism faa3il" and "ism maf3oul", to translate that literally you can say that the first is "the name of the grammatical subject" and the second is "the name of the grammatical object", that's why you made such a connection - but in reality the subject and object do not need to be a human or even an animal, it does not even have to be a "thing" (it can be an idea, as an example).

Except for 2 derivations, they (اسم الفاعل واسم المفعول) all start with the meem and taa'. But it's not as simple as that, you have to look at the whole word becaue it's not just adding two letters, you also change the vowels.



gsc said:


> Usually the Egyptians seem to take the quickest route to say something


 
I don't think that this is limited to Egyptians, after all: خَيْرُ الكَلامِ ما قَلَّ ودَلّ


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## gsc

Thank you Maha - I think I sort of get it but maybe later I will delve into it properly. So many things to take on board and now I wish I had paid more attention in my English Language classes. My 6 year old granddaughter is better at naming grammtical parts than I am 



Mahaodeh said:


> I don't think that this is limited to Egyptians, after all: خَيْرُ الكَلامِ ما قَلَّ ودَلّ


If this was my home-work I failed miserably to translate it. Maybe 5/10. 

I think we English can be rather long-winded at times. Although there are many aspects of learning Arabic that are hard for us some aspects seems so much easier than English and it does seem to me that Egyptian Arabic is at least easier than MSA but then I have no experience of other dialects.


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