# Too … to…



## paieye

I need to find the Arabic equivalent of sentences such as these:

"It is too cold to sit outside."
"It is too early to take the cake out of the oven."

What is recommended ?


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## OsamaAbdullah

I recommend:

- من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد
- ليس الوقت المناسب لإخراج الكعكة من الفرن

Best Regards


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## paieye

I am grateful for this prompt help, but could you kindly give me the literal English translation of the 1st 3 words of your 1st sentence, please ?  I am particularly puzzled by the role of من in that phrase.


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## Lark-lover

OsamaAbdullah said:


> I recommend:
> 
> - من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد
> - ليس الوقت المناسب لإخراج الكعكة من الفرن
> 
> Best Regards


It is impossible to sit outside for being very cold.
Being very cold, it is impossible to sit outside

It is unsuitable time to get the cake out of the oven


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## Lark-lover

paieye said:


> I need to find the Arabic equivalent of sentences such as these:
> 
> "It is too cold to sit outside."
> "It is too early to take the cake out of the oven."
> 
> What is recommended ?


البرد شديد جداً فلا يمكن الجلوس في الخارج
مازال الوقت مبكراً جداً على إخراج الكعكة


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## paieye

My thanks to you, too, Lark-lover, but what is the literal translation of من غير الممكن here ?


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## Lark-lover

paieye said:


> My thanks to you, too, Lark-lover, but what is the literal translation of من غير الممكن here ?


impossible 
(no way)


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## paieye

Thank you, but I am still troubled by من.  Surely it means 'from.'  The result seems to be that the phrase means literally 'from the impossibility,' or something of the sort, and the logic of the phrase remains puzzling.


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## Arabic_Police_999

الجوّ بارد جدًّا لكي تجلس خارجًا
الوقت مبكر جدا لكي تخرج الكعكة من الفرن
مازال الوقت باكرا لتخرج الكعكة من الفرن


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## إسكندراني

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> الجوّ بارد جدًّا لكي تجلس خارجًا
> الوقت مبكر جدا لكي تخرج الكعكة من الفرن
> مازال الوقت باكرا لتخرج الكعكة من الفرن


بالضبط

وباللهجة المصرية نستعمل كلمة (على) كالآتي
الجو سقعة على انك تقعد برا
لسا بدري على انك تطلع الكيكة
I think you might be able to use this in modern standard writing too. No need to resort to a gisted translation.


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## paieye

Thank you, too, AP999, but could you too kindly give me the literal translation of the critical phrases ?


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## Arabic_Police_999

paieye said:


> Thank you, too, AP999, but could you too kindly give me the literal translation of the critical phrases ?


am not sure of what you mean by critical phrases, but I will try 
"It is too cold(الجوُّ باردٌ جدًا_the whether cold too/very) to sit outside( لكي *ت**جلسَ* خارجًا_to (you ma*l*e)site outside/ or لِلجلوس خارجًا_for sitting outside)."

"It is too early(الوقتُ مبكرٌ جدًا_the time early too/very) to take the cake out of the oven( لكي تخرجَ الكعكةَ من الفرنِ_to (you male)take out the cake from the oven/ or لإخراجِ الكعكة من الفرن_ for taking out the cake from the oven."


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## paieye

Thank you, AP999, for the trouble that you have taken to help me.


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## paieye

Using your approach, AP999, would this be a correct sentence ?  
يعودمِن مكتبته مُتاخَرًا جِدًا لِكَي يقضيوَقَت ما اولاده


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## Eternal student

It has always been my understanding that normally the closest idiomatic Arabic translation of the English 'too x to y' construction is of the form 'more [adjective] than that is possible [verb/verbal noun]'. How do native speakers feel about the following rendering?

الجوّ أبرد من أن يمكن الجلوس خارجًا

'Too early to take the cake out of the oven' is an interesting case. Although this is definitely perfectly good idiomatic English, somehow I feel it's a different use of 'too' than what I take to be the most common use. For me, the most common use of 'too' is when something is beyond a person's capacity ('too hot to touch', 'too cold to sit outside', 'too difficult to understand', etc.). This is why I'm not usually keen on translations into Arabic that use جدًا. جدًا means 'very'. It can be very cold without it necessarily being too cold to go outside (assuming you have the right clothes etc.), and conversely it can be only a little cold and yet still be too cold for a certain person (a baby, or someone who's ill etc.) to go outside. 'Too early' and 'too late' are not like this of course - they're not about anyone's capacity to do something - but still I feel that a translation involving جدًا is not appropriate here, but for a different reason this time. Here, 'too' again does not mean 'very', in fact, it would be totally fine to say 'it's too early to take the cake out of the oven' even if it only needed 5 more minutes. All that 'too early' and 'too late' seem to mean are that 'the time has not yet come' and 'the time has now passed', respectively. So, for 'It's too early to take the cake out of the oven', I would recommend something like:

لما يحن وقت إخراج الكعكة من الفرن

or

لم يحن بعد وقت إخراج الكعكة من الفرن


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## OsamaAbdullah

الجو أبرد من أن يمكن الجلوس خارجاً is somehow weak.


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## paieye

I have myself felt uncomfortable about the idea that in Arabic there is no distinction between "it is very cold to go outside" and "it is too cold to go outside," for precisely the reason that you give, E.S.  

Is there really no way in Arabic of giving effect to that distinction, which may sometimes be such an important one  ?


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## Eternal student

OsamaAbdullah said:


> الجو أبرد من أن يمكن الجلوس خارجاً is somehow weak.



Could you expand on what you mean by weak here? Is it grammatically or stylistically not very good Arabic? That would be bad of course.

If what you mean is that it doesn't express a very extreme degree of coldness, well then that is precisely my point: 'too' does not mean 'very'. 'Too' doesn't necessarily mean an extreme degree of anything, just a degree that is greater than the maximum possible that would allow someone to do something (such as sitting outside).


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## paieye

What about something such as this: "عندما يعود من مكتبته فوات الاوان لكي يقضي" &c. ?


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## إسكندراني

paieye said:


> I have myself felt uncomfortable about the idea that in Arabic there is no distinction between "it is very cold to go outside" and "it is too cold to go outside," for precisely the reason that you give, E.S.
> 
> Is there really no way in Arabic of giving effect to that distinction, which may sometimes be such an important one  ?


Again, I think the Egyptian dialect's way may be acceptable.
الجو بارد على الجلوس بالخارج
alternatively
الجو أبرد من أن يسمح بالخروج


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## paieye

Thank you, يا أِسكندراني, but are you saying that either or both of those expresses the idea that to sit outside is actually impossible as distinct from merely inadvisable ?  If so, what is the construction that is crucial to this  distinction ?


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## إسكندراني

paieye said:


> Thank you, يا أِسكندراني, but are you saying that either or both of those expresses the idea that to sit outside is actually impossible as distinct from merely inadvisable ?  If so, what is the construction that is crucial to this  distinction ?


I see them as equivalent to the English expression.
الصندوق ثقيل عليك the box is too heavy for you 
الصندوق أثقل من أن تحمله
الصندوق ثقيل على أنك تحمله
The box is too heavy for you to carry


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## OsamaAbdullah

Eternal student said:


> Could you expand on what you mean by weak here? Is it grammatically or stylistically not very good Arabic? That would be bad of course.
> 
> If what you mean is that it doesn't express a very extreme degree of coldness, well then that is precisely my point: 'too' does not mean 'very'. 'Too' doesn't necessarily mean an extreme degree of anything, just a degree that is greater than the maximum possible that would allow someone to do something (such as sitting outside).



It is not very good Arabic. The use of من أن يمكن الجلوس is grammatically right but this is not how we express this situation in Arabic, if it's cold outside to the extent that we can't go outside we simply say من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد or بسبب البرد الشديد، من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً. and when we Arabs, hear the phrase "too cold" we perceive it as extremely cold. So in this case I would consider that cold outside is شديد that's why I can't stay outside therefore the best translation to it in the way we express it in Arabic is: من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً لشدة البرد or من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد. the translation you gave is weak because it is simply literal translation.

By the way لما يحن الوقت fits perfectly and it's good to use لما, unfortunately we don't use it that much nowadays.


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## Eternal student

OsamaAbdullah said:


> It is not very good Arabic. The use of من أن يمكن الجلوس is grammatically right but this is not how we express this situation in Arabic, if it's cold outside to the extent that we can't go outside we simply say من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد or بسبب البرد الشديد، من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً. and when we Arabs, hear the phrase "too cold" we perceive it as extremely cold. So in this case I would consider that cold outside is شديد that's why I can't stay outside therefore the best translation to it in the way we express it in Arabic is: من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً لشدة البرد or من غير الممكن الجلوس خارجاً بسبب البرد الشديد. the translation you gave is weak because it is simply literal translation.



Thanks for your thoughts on this OsamaAbdullah. I think most English speakers who have spent time in an Arab country will be familiar with the fact that Arabs tend to think of 'too' and 'very' as equivalents, but the fact is they definitely are not! For example, take this perfectly good English sentence (admittedly describing a slightly odd scenario):

Because you are only 2 metres tall, I'm afraid you are *too short *to officially qualify for this year's giant competition.

If you are 2 metres tall, you definitely cannot be described as 'very short', even though you can be considered too short to count as a giant! So how would you propose to translate this sort of _too_-containing sentence into Arabic?


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## paieye

One can also imagine sentences in English such as "It is very cold,  but not too cold to go for a walk."  How would one translate that into (M.S.A.) Arabic ?


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## OsamaAbdullah

Eternal student said:


> Thanks for your thoughts on this OsamaAbdullah. I think most English speakers who have spent time in an Arab country will be familiar with the fact that Arabs tend to think of 'too' and 'very' as equivalents, but the fact is they definitely are not! For example, take this perfectly good English sentence (admittedly describing a slightly odd scenario):
> 
> Because you are only 2 metres tall, I'm afraid you are *too short *to officially qualify for this year's giant competition.
> 
> If you are 2 metres tall, you definitely cannot be described as 'very short', even though you can be considered too short to count as a giant! So how would you propose to translate this sort of _too_-containing sentence into Arabic?



طولك يبلغ مترين فقط، لهذا يؤسفني أنك قصير جداً لتكون مؤهلاً إلى الدخول في مسابقة العمالقة هذه السنة.

it is the same.



paieye said:


> One can also imagine sentences in English such as "It is very cold, but not too cold to go for a walk." How would one translate that into (M.S.A.) Arabic ?



this is a literal translation to your sentence in MSA:
الجو بارد جداً ولكن ليس كثيراً للخروج في نزهة

you can see I had to use ليس كثيراً because i can't say in arabic ليس بارداً كثيراً. 
the proper translation in my opinion would be like this: الجو بارد جداً ولكن ليس بارداً لدرجة أن يمنعنا من الخروج في نزهة.
I know in the second translation that the word "too" is omitted but it is still more accurate to what your sentence wants to convey.

when I translate I would go for option no.2


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## إسكندراني

أسامة، نهاية جملتك غريبة بالنسبة لي، كيف تقول (ليس كثيرا) وأنت تشير إلى البرد؟ البرد ليس له كثرة


paieye said:


> One can also imagine sentences in English such as "It is very cold,  but not too cold to go for a walk."  How would one translate that into (M.S.A.) Arabic ?


الجو بارد، ولكن ليس لتلك الدرجة التي تمنع الخروج للتنزه
This kind of structure is common in Egypt and the Gulf
مش للدرجة دي
مو لتلك الدرجة


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## OsamaAbdullah

إسكندراني said:


> أسامة، نهاية جملتك غريبة بالنسبة لي، كيف تقول (ليس كثيرا) وأنت تشير إلى البرد؟ البرد ليس له كثرة
> 
> الجو بارد، ولكن ليس لتلك الدرجة التي تمنع الخروج للتنزه
> This kind of structure is common in Egypt and the Gulf
> مش للدرجة دي
> مو لتلك الدرجة



Of course it is weird I mentioned that's a literal translation just to discuss the word "too". I mentioned that proper expression is ليس بارداً لدرجة


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