# All dialects/MSA: interesting



## smooha

Hi everyone,

I recall in my Arabic classes, one of the most troublesome words to translate from English into Arabic was "interesting."

No matter what suggestion was offered, no Arabic word exactly meant the same thing as interesting, used in the intended English context.

I'd like to know what you native Arabic speakers would suggest.  Personally, I'm most interested (!) to know what expression you would use in Arabic to comment on what someone has just said "Hmm.. interesting."  I've been told to use "muthiir," but I've gotten strange looks when using this word too much.


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## abusaf

The thing is that the word isnt used as much in Arabic as it is in English, therefore youll probably get strange looks if you use any of the translations too much.

However, the most correct translation that most dictionaries would provide is مثير للاهتمام


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## elroy

Yes, I agree that مثير للاهتمام is generally the best translation.

The reason you got strange looks, Smooha, is not that the word isn't used much in Arabic, but that it has sexual connotations!  That's because it is used to mean "sexually arousing/stimulating."  And that's why it's always best to follow it up with an explanatory prepositional phrase.  

As for your particular question about what to use to comment on what someone has said, in Palestinian Arabic we might say something like فكرة حلوة, the adjective حلو being a very versatile one that corresponds more or less to the English "interesting" in this case. 

I know you didn't ask about this directly, but the past participle form ("interested") is easy to translate: مَعني.

مهم doesn't work at all, by the way, because it means "important."


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## Josh_

I have also found this word problematic. One thing I occasionally do when I have difficulty translating a word is to look it up in a dictionary to gain a different perspective.  Sometimes it helps.

Anyway, I also agree that مثير للاهتمام is generally the best, but it doesn't work in all cases -- it depends on the connotation you want to convey. 'Interesting' is one of those _interesting_ words, if you will, because it has different connotations and nuances (other than the denotative ones), and I think that is what makes translating it so difficult.  As well as 'exciting or arousing interest' it also has the meaning of holding attention, but with indifference -- that is, holding attention while not necessarily being exciting nor unexciting.  It's often a response to something said, such as a story, that the listener doesn't necessarily care about, but doesn't necessarily find boring nor exciting either, he/she just feels indifference.  That, I think, is probably one of the most common, if not the most common, usage of the word in English and why the word can be difficult to convey in Arabic.  That idea would probably have to be conveyed by a whole sentence in Arabic.  I don't believe there is a one word response that conveys this in Arabic.

'Interesting' can also mean, as I'm sure you know, other things such as 'enjoyable' and 'peculiar.'

For example:

"You should hang out with him.  He's an interesting guy who tells many stories about his travels overseas."
شاب ممتع

That man over there is an interesting guy.  Did you know he lives by himself and only comes out at night.
رخل غريب

"Did you hear that Bob  was fired, threw a fit, and then had to be carried away by security."
"Yeah, quite an interesting state of affairs."
حالة أمر غريبة


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## ayed

Interesting :
*ماتع*
*مشوق*
*شيق*


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## Ayazid

What about *ممتع* ?


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## Ayazid

Oh, just now I have noticed that this word has been already mentioned by Josh, but I guess, it´s the most common one, at least in Egyptian dialect.


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## MeiLing

I guess it all depends on the context, for each word or phrase, eg. شيـِّق, مثير للاهتمام, ممتع, حلو... etc, is a semantic expression in itself.


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## Ayazid

More precisely, on the context *and* the form of language (MSA x Colloquial Arabic). I don´t think that some Egyptian fella7 or worker would ever use expression like "مثير للاهتمام" in daily life, but maybe I am wrong


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## MeiLing

Of course, Ayazid. You are right. 
The context implies for sure all aspects and features of the spoken language, whether be it standard or colloquial. At least, that's how I, personally, see it.


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## suma

Isn't it interesting how certain notions or thoughts, and the words used to express them, occur more often in certain cultures and less in others?  

Like the _too hot, too fat, don't drive too fast_, 

I've mentioned before, and how no easy Arabic equivalent readily jumps to mind. (more often then not, it takes a few Arabic words and prepositions to express this idea). Makes you think that notions like that don't come up so often in Arab culture.


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## WadiH

Is there an Arabic way of saying "this book is interesting" or "this topic is interesting"? I couldn't think of any.


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## ayed

Marhaba , Wadi Hanifah..
*هذا الكتاب ماتع/ممتع
هذا الكتاب شائق/مشوق
ويمكن انسحاب الصفة ذاتها على جملة* :
This topic is interesting


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## Josh_

Maybe you could use مثير للاهتمام .


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## WadiH

Oh I see.  Thanks.  I guess مثير للاهتمام is as close as it gets; but it doesn't work for all cases.


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## Mahaodeh

Wadi Hanifa, I've never come across the word ماتع before, are you sure it's used?


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## WadiH

Mahaodeh said:


> Wadi Hanifa, I've never come across the word ماتع before, are you sure it's used?


 
That was Ayed's suggestion, not mine.


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## ayed

Wadi Hanifa said:


> That was Ayed's suggestion, not mine.


 Wadi ! You are my representative .

mati3 is correct :
*المحيط في اللغة: الماتع من الأشياء: البالغ في الجودة الفاضل*


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## Mahaodeh

Wadi Hanifa said:


> That was Ayed's suggestion, not mine.


 
Sorry, my mistake.


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## Andrew___

In MSA, can I say this about a newspaper article?

Does this work?

هذا نشرته الصحيفة كان مثيرا للاهتمام


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## Xence

لقد كان هذا المقال جديرا بالاهتمام


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## elroy

Or لقد كان هذا المقال مثيرًا للاهتمام


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## Andrew___

Thanks.  Is this word  المقال pronounced "muqaal"?


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## elroy

Close.  It's "m*a*qaal."


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## qaqa85

[what's interesting in airport?]

Anyone could help me translate this to hejazi please?

Thanks a lot.


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## L.2

aysh heya ill7aaja el mumti3a fiil ma6aar?
aysh il mumti3 fiil ma6aar?

by the way, the second sentence can also be non hejazi what makes something hejazi is the pronunciation, and the tone and music of the accent.
In addition to the changing of some sounds ex 'th' in 'there' is pronounced d, th in 'three' is pronounced t , also hejazi's speak little slower than bedoins and we make sure you hear the long vowels, also the r is something different than the rest of Saudi Arabia, and Arabs in general. Whenever any saudi wants to imitate a hijazi, the first thing they do is imitating r's.
roll your r's not so much to sound indian, but only a little than normal , let your tongue first touch the back of your lower teeth then quickly hit your upper teeth, and there make a hijazi unique wonderful vibration.


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## WadiH

L.2 said:


> aysh heya al7aaja al mumti3a fiil ma6aar?
> aysh al mumti3 fiil ma6aar?


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## L.2

This my grandparents old fashioned pronunciation.
I am a native hejazi, I say it as I wrote with slight that isn't exactly a. I prounounce the 'a' when it's a single word, or in short sentences.
ex,
Aysh elli ankasar?
attrabyza I don't say ettrabayza.
in long sentences it is really awkward to say every single 'a' and we tend to soft it a little to e.


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## WadiH

L.2 said:


> This my grandparents old fashioned pronunciation.
> I am a native hejazi, I say it as I wrote with slight that isn't exactly a. I prounounce the 'a' when it's a single word, or in short sentences.
> ex,
> Aysh elli ankasar?
> attrabyza I don't say ettrabayza.
> in long sentences it is really awkward to say every single 'a' and we tend to soft it a little to e.




I should mention that these are all همزات وصل, so you don't stop between one word and the next and say "al-."  It sounds to me more like this:

_eesh hiyyal 7aajal mumti3a fil maTaar_


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## L.2

Wadi Hanifa said:


> I should mention that these are all همزات وصل, so you don't stop between one word and the next and say "al-." It sounds to me more like this:
> 
> _eesh hiyyal 7aajal mumti3a fil maTaar_


 
We don't say 'al'. الـ comes like il or el, we only say 'al' in in the example described in my previous post.
sorry I played the sentence back and it does not come like your version. actually it's
aysh hiyaa el7aaja elmumti3a fil ma6aar
Hijazi is a kind of lazy accent and it always emphasises the h ــه at the end of words. we don't added any suffixes 'el' or anything when the previous sound is 'a' so it's ok to attach il to fi [fiil ma6ar] but not with hiyaa [hiya il7aaja]
We just say 7aaja with pushing air at the end or making a long vowel so it becomes sometimes 7aajaa.
By the way, eesh is wrong. Urbans say aysh ايش or ايه
and hijaz bedouins say aysh ايش or waysh ويش


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## clevermizo

L.2 said:


> By the way, eesh is wrong. Urbans say aysh ايش or ايه
> and hijaz bedouins say aysh ايش or waysh ويش



I think both you and Wadi mean the same sound. Here on the forum we use the symbol [ee] to represent a long [e] sound  (ـَــيْــ in Fus7a) (like بيت) and [ii] to represent a long _ sound (like طويل)._


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## L.2

The first sound should be 'a' aysh aish maybe aesh but not eesh.
For house, do you mean it is beet? i think it's bayt in fus7a. bayt like y in byte or dye, or Arabic layl(night)


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## qaqa85

I pronounce بيت not bayit but sounds like bed.

Is that correct?


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## L.2

الباء مفتوحة والياء ساكنة
بَيْت


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## clevermizo

L.2 said:


> The first sound should be 'a' aysh aish maybe aesh but not eesh.
> For house, do you mean it is beet? i think it's bayt in fus7a. bayt like y in byte or dye, or Arabic layl(night)



Yes, I'm aware of that, but in dialect you pronounce it differently or no? Anyway, think of an Egyptian pronouncing بيت and this is what Wadi means above with the transcription [ee]. So his [eesh] and your [aysh] refer to the same thing.


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## L.2

'a' sometimes becomes e in ال التعريف only, other than this it's a.
about بيت you mix fus7a with Egyptian
bayt in fus7a هذا بَيْتُ أبي
beet in Egyptian دا بِيت بابا
Two different pronunciations.

anyway, you made me doubt my english. Do 'ay' and 'ee' represent the same sound?
Do you in English prounonce day like dee?
Thanks


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## WadiH

L.2 said:


> 'a' sometimes becomes e in ال التعريف only, other than this it's a.
> about بيت you mix fus7a with Egyptian
> bayt in fus7a هذا بَيْتُ أبي
> beet in Egyptian دا بِيت بابا
> Two different pronunciations.
> 
> anyway, you made me doubt my english. Do 'ay' and 'ee' represent the same sound?
> Do you in English prounonce day like dee?
> Thanks



On this forum, we tend not to use English spelling conventions (which are inconsistent anyway) to transliterate Arabic words.  This is because English does not distinguish between "short" and "long vowels," and because we want to distinguish between the "Egyptian بيت" and the "FusHa بيت" ("ee" v. "ay"), as Mizo explained.

For the English "ee" (as in "see"), we use _ii_.
For the FusHa vowel in بيت, we use _ay_.
For the Egyptian (and Saudi vowel for that matter) in بيت we use _ee_ (which is NOT the same as the Englis "ee")


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## L.2

ok I got it.
What about فين ?
I mean hijazi فين not Eqyptian فين?
How can I distinguish between these two pronunciations?
Is this correct?
Egyptian fiin
Saudi feen
I don't feel it is ok, someone will read it as ee in deer, deep though it's more like fain, the first sound is obviously a?
Anyway, is this usage only in the forum or it's a true linguistic one.


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## طالب

Hello!  Of the various _interesting_ threads, I think this one is best for my question.

"And it is most interesting to see how they have reacted . . ."

والأجدر للإهتمام هو ردهم/ردودهم على . . .


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## elroy

طالب said:


> والأجدر للإهتمام هو ردهم/ردودهم على . . .


 If you want to use الأجدر, you have to say الأجدر بالاهتمام.

Otherwise, you can say الأكثر إثارة للاهتمام.


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## طالب

That's great; thanks, elroy.  Does your alternative with _al-akthar ithâratan li-l-ihtimâm_ still work with the rest of my sentence like _al-'ajdar bi-l-ihtimâm_?  (i.e. _huwa rudûdu-hum 3alâ_)


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## elroy

Yes, it does.


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## samatar

مرحبا للجميع، 

سؤالي اليوم هو كيف بتقولوا 'interesting' بلهجتكم المحلّيّة. للأسف مش عم بقدر لاقي كلمة ملائمة أقدر استعملها - أغلب الناس اللي بعرفهم بيستعملوا كلمة من لغة غير العربية عشان يعبروا عن هاي الصفة.

شكرًا


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## Haroon

شيق - ممتع - رائع - جميل :


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## WadiH

أنا كذلك أعاني من هذه الكلمة
ما هو السياق الذي تريد أن تستخدمها فيه؟


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## samatar

مثلاً: هاد الموضوع كثير intersting
أو حضرت فيلم وثائقي كثير interesting بحكي عن كذا...

هارون - ممكن تعطيني أمثلة على جمل بتستخدم فيها كل وحدة من هاي الكلمات؟ إنه عنجد دارجة في المصري ككلمات معناها intersting (كلمة شيّق أكيد. السؤال إذا فعلاً مستخدمة في اللغة العامية...)


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## Abu Fahm

interesting سمعت كلمة"ظريف" بسياق يدل على إنّها يعني


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## إسكندراني

كنت حاقول ظريف فعلا يا ابوفهم


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## WadiH

والله إحنا نقول كتاب حلو، فلم رهيب، إلخ
ما أظن عندنا كلمة تقابل (إنترستنق) الإنقليزية بالضبط


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## rayloom

Wadi Hanifa said:


> والله إحنا نقول كتاب حلو، فلم رهيب، إلخ
> ما أظن عندنا كلمة تقابل (إنترستنق) الإنقليزية بالضبط



حلوة إنترستنق 
أظن البعض عندنا يستعملون "عجيب!" ليعنوا إنترستنق!


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## WadiH

ياخي الحروف الإنقليزية في وسط الجملة تلخبط علي النص!

عجيب بهذا المعنى سمعتها من الكويتيين

يعني يقولون عجيب من الإعجاب

أما عندنا فعجيب من العجب أي شيء غريب، مثير للانتباه لكن ليس بالضرورة أن يعجبك

مدري أحسّ إني خبصت الدعوة ولا فهمتا مني شي


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## rayloom

نفس المعاناة
وبالنسبة لعجيب، بالفعل أظنه تأثير المسلسلات الكويتية


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## إسكندراني

إذا نظرنا لكلمة
interesting
من حيث التركيب فمعناها فعلاً «مُثِير للإهتمام أو للفضول» كما تترجم في الدبلجات
ومن حيث الاستخدام لا أرى لها داعي اصلا لأنك لو كنت تتكلم عن شيء فمن الواضح أنك مهتم بذاك الشيء ولا داعي لذكر انه اثار اهتمامك!ـ


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## WadiH

والله ياخي ذاتس آن إنترستنق آيديا!


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## elroy

أول إشي الأحرف الإنجليزية بتخربشش إشي إذا الواحد بحدّد النص وبكبس على هذا الزر.

بالنسبة للموضوع أنا برأيي فش مرادف مناسب لهاي الكلمة باللهجة الفلسطينية، وهذا نقص برأيي لإنو الكلمة إلها معنى خاص فيها وبلاقيش إنو الكلمات إللي ذُكرت هون إلها نفس المعنى.

 عشان هيك كتير من الفلسطينية إللي بحكو عبراني بستعملوا الكلمة العربانية إللي هي "معنيين" (ساماتار أكيد بعرفها ).​


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## samatar

هاي بالضبط المشكلة، الياس.
بنتج إنه الواحد كثير بستعمل هاي الكلمة بالعبري، وهاد الإشي كثير بضايقني.. لازم ينعمل إشي بالموضوع.
ممكن الواحد إذا بستعمل كلمة شيّق أو عجيب، بتعوّد عليهن بعد فترة.

الأولى مثلاً لما تقول عن إشي إنه intersting والثانية لما يحكولك إشي وتقول
hmm.. intersting


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## إسكندراني

عندي صديق مصري كلما نتكلم عالمحمول وندردش كتير بيقول «والله فكرة يا راجل»ـ - أعتقد هذا معنى مشابه
أو ممكن نقول مثلاً
«وجهة نظر برضه» أو «آه ممكن» - اذا قلناها بنبرة صوت مناسبة


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## Interprete

Hello,

I keep wondering how to say 'interesting' in Egyptian, and my Egyptian friends seem to have a really hard time coming up with an exact equivalent, for some reason.

If I ask them to say "this was a very interesting visit", or "this film is quite interesting", or "she's an interesting person", they just come up with stuff like حلو or جميل or even مثير للاهتمام

A glossary in my Egyptian manual tells me that interesting is 'mosalli'. Could you confirm (or not) that 'mosalli' can be used in pretty much all these circumstances (ie the same as in English, an interesting museum, person, book, film, debate ?)

Thank you!


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## makala

مسلي means ''entertaining'', I've heard egyptians use the msa-word ''شيق''(shayyeq) for interesting.


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## Huda

that depends on the word modified by "interesting"
interesting book, film, debate= كتاب ،فيلم شيق ، مناقشة/مناظرة شيقة
interesting person= شخص مثير للاهتمام


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## Interprete

Thank you!

By the way, how do they pronounce the qaf in shayyeq?


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## makala

Well I said, they use the MSA-word, when they use anything from standard arabic they pronounce the ''q'' like the ''q'' in القران, not like glottal stop.


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## Interprete

Thanks makala. I've heard several MSA words with qaf pronounced either 'really' qaf or hamza, hence my question


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## yields

I have a problem with Interesting. The word itself isnt used as much in arabic, but stilL I would like to pinpoint the EXACT translation of it.
مثير
مهم
شيق
ممتع
مشوق
none of these exactly conveys the word. Any help ? I am looking for one word translations, thanks a lot !

Note: This thread has been merged with another on the same topic. Please remember to search through previous discussions before posting.


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## ayed

I depends on the context you have.
Any way, it means "ماتع"


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## إسكندراني

We could find no exact equivalent, 'yields'. The best - in different contexts - are those you mentioned. Sometimes we might also translate it as مفيد


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## yields

Oh haha didn't know the word was discussed before in other threads. Feels funny now. I guess مفيد can also do it indirectly somehow yes... Thanks


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## yields

"الطريف" ?


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## إسكندراني

طريف feels more like 'jolly, nice, good' to me. It can be a good translation sometimes.


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## jmt356

MSA:
مثير الانتباه

Levantine: 
?


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## Malki92

It really depends on the context, but some possibilities in Palestinian Arabic are;

مشوق (mushawwe2)

ممتع (mumte3)


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## Finland

Hello!

"Interesting" is one those words for which you don't have very straightforward equivalents in Arabic – that is, it is often a good idea to express the idea of i nterestingness by some other means in Arabic. Sure, you have مثير للانتباه (for me, this variant with ل is more familiar) and مثير للاهتمام, which is even more widely used, but they are not nearly as idiomatic in Arabic as "interesting" is in English.

You can also consider using a verb, such as اهتم بــ or لفط نظره or something like that to express the same meaning, often ending up in a more natural sounding result.

HTH
S


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## grosdied

Depending on the context, I've also heard the following in Levantine Arabic: مفيد، مهم


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## elroy

shaliach said:


> مشوق (mushawwe2)
> 
> ممتع (mumte3)





grosdied said:


> مفيد، مهم


 Unfortunately, none of these really means "interesting":

مشوّق: exciting, captivating
ممتع: fun, entertaining
مفيد: useful, beneficial
مهم: important

As Finland said it's going to depend on the context.  By the way, Arab Israelis frequently use the Hebrew word for "interesting," which is מעניין (pronounced "mi3anyēn" in Arabic), but obviously this is unique to Palestinian Arabic and won't be understood in other parts of the Levant.


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## Arabic Learner

I'm learning from Pimsleur's Eastern (Syrian) Arabic.  There's no written text, but it sounds like they're saying "zarif" زريف for "interesting." Could that be right?


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## elroy

The word is ظريف.  It's used a lot in Syrian.  I guess in some contexts it could work for "interesting," but we'd need a specific sentence/context so native speakers of Syrian Arabic can let you know.


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## Arabic Learner

Thanks, Elroy.  They use the word in a sentence like "My job is interesting" "شغلي ظريف." I wonder if Palestinians or Lebanese also use the word?


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## elroy

We don’t use it.  I would understand that sentence to mean “My job is enjoyable,” whether that’s because it’s interesting or for other reasons.  I feel, though, that the word “interesting” has undergone so much semantic bleaching that it’s now broad enough for it to be safe to say that anything that is enjoyable is probably (also) interesting. . In other words, a job that is ظريف most likely _is_ interesting, but strictly speaking that’s not what ظريف means.


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## apricots

It's best to forget describing things as interesting when learning Arabic because there's no good substitute. I've heard Israeli Palestinians say things like kteer interesting too so depending on what context you're speaking in you could possibly take that route.


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## elroy

As I said, Arab Israelis frequently use the Hebrew borrowing _miʿanyēn _for "interesting," but it occurs to me that its uses are possibly more limited than those of "interesting."  It's often used to describe a situation, but _qaraʾt iktāb miʿanyēn_, for example, sounds strange to me.


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## She'lock Holmes

The best dialectal word for this in Syrian Arabic is حلو but this isn't a literal usage for it as it can be translated for 'nice' too; otherwise, we'd just use a loanword from Modern Written Arabic or -mostly Lebanese- even the English word 'interesting'.

An example of this usage:
X: -X sends to Y a scientific fact, most luckily in English/French or MWA- هل تعلم أن عدد أنواع الكائنات المعروفة حوالي تسع ملايين؟
Y: حلو.


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## Hemza

She'lock Holmes said:


> The best dialectal word for this in Syrian Arabic is حلو



While reading the thread I was wondering why no one seems to have thought about the words used for "good/nice". Those words with the right context may convey the meaning of interesting, wouldn't they?
For instance, فكرة زينة (or any "good/nice" equivalent) may be used to express interest into an idea I think. That's said, as others said there isn't one word to convey interest and it rely on the context.


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## Mahaodeh

Hemza said:


> Those words with the right context may convey the meaning of interesting, wouldn't they?



No, not really. The thing about the word 'interesting' in English is that it's neutral, while good/nice are definitely positive and accordingly give a different meaning.


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## Hemza

my bad, because in French, it embeds a good/nice aspect (intéressant) I thought the same goes in English.


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## langcur

[Levantine: interesting (in the intellectual sense)]

Hi,

How would you say "interesting" (intellectually) about a newspaper article, documentary movie, research, opinion, theory, etc. I don't mean here "entertaining". Is مُمْتِع O.K for  "interesting"? I think مُمْتِع is more for "entertaining", but I might be wrong here.

Thanks for answers


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## elroy

As you can see if you read through this long thread, translating "interesting" into Arabic is a tough nut to crack.  As I said earlier, Arab Israelis use "miʿanyēn" as a Hebrew borrowing, but obviously that's a small population of Palestinian speakers, let alone Levantine speakers.  مُمْتِع definitely doesn't work in Palestinian: for one, it doesn't have the same meaning (as you noted), and for two, we don't really use the word at all in Palestinian.

One option (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) could be بِشِدّ اهتمامك, or maybe, in some contexts, بِخَلّيك تْفَكِّر.


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## langcur

Hi,

Yes, I avoid using borrowed words from Hebrew because it's not the way to learn and limited to a relatively small population. In colloquial Hebrew too there are words borrowed from Arabic.
When you wrote "بِشِدّ اهتمامك", about the "بِشِدّ"  did you mean the 3rd person singular imperfect in colloquial? Seems to me that that's what it is.

Thanks a lot for the help.


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## elroy

Yes.  Specifically, the masculine form.


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## raful

Regarding the Palestinian dialect, while talking to a native speaker I used the word "مثير" to describe something interesting. He right away said: never use this word for "interesting", since in the Palestinian colloquial dialect it means "sexy".
Is that so?


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## analeeh

I think that's likely to be many people's interpretation. In MSA as well مثير can mean 'stimulating' or 'arousing' on its own.


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## Derakhshan

Interestingly (haha...), the word for "interesting" in Persian is an Arabic word: جالب. Though it has a somewhat more positive connotation than in English. For example, in Persian I could have started this post with جالب است بدانيد "interestingly/you'd find it interesting to know that".


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## raamez

فعلا موضوع مثير للاهتمام   
Jocking aside, here are two other possiblities I can think of يدعو للاهتمام and  يثير الانتباه


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