# What time is it?



## ahmadiyyah

How can I say what time is it in arabic


----------



## Talib

ما الساعة or "what is the hour?" but you should start a new thread for questions like that.


----------



## elroy

I would say *كم *الساعة؟


----------



## djamal 2008

In Algeria we say قداش الساعة.
How can I say what time is it in arabic  or what time it is?


----------



## Rice-Puffs

you say
كم الساعة ؟


----------



## AndyRoo

Egyptian: is-saa3a kaam?


----------



## MarcB

Some colloquial expressinons are: kaam a asa'a ,isa'a kaam, qadash e esa'a shgaad es sa's waqtash,


----------



## Blue_Rose

In most countries it's "Kam Issa'ah" كم الساعة

"Issa'ah kam" is also correct, but is not grammatically correct so it is never used in Literary Arabic (The one used in printed material i.e. documents, books, newspaper..etc). 

But for normal dayily use, both are correct.


----------



## Talib

elroy said:


> I would say *كم *الساعة؟


Silly of me - I was thinking of Hebrew where the term is מה השעה. Of course كم الساعة is correct. Why use a word for "what" when you have a word for "how much," after all.


----------



## elroy

Well, Hebrew has a word for "how much," but מה is what's used in this expression.  Languages aren't always logical. 

By the way, in Palestinian Arabic it's قديش الساعة؟ (_addeesh is-see3a?_).  قديش is our word for "how much."


----------



## djara

In Tunisian, qaddaash il-waqt قداش الوقت


----------



## Josh_

Something I have often thought about is the interrogatives used when the intended answer is a number.  And it seems to me, as per my understanding of MSA and Egyptian, that the interrogative word for "what" (ما and إيه (by itself)) is not used when this is the case.  At least I cannot think of any instances offhand of when it would be used.   While I am not 100% sure my guess is that it is the same for all dialects.

So I will venture to say it is a good rule of thumb to remember that whenever the intended answer to a question is a number, the interrogative word will be either كم (in MSA) or either some variant of كم or قد إيش in the dialects.


----------



## clevermizo

Josh_ said:


> ...whenever the intended answer to a question is a number, the interrogative word will be either كم (in MSA) or either some variant of كم or قد إيش in the dialects.




I would say "quantity" rather than number, because technically you could say "What is that number? Oh, it's a number three" which doesn't refer to a quantity. Do you say "How much is the square root of 5 (كم/قديش etc.)?" or "What (ما/شو/إيه/إيش etc) is the square root of 5?" This refers to a "value" which isn't necessarily a quantity. In the case of time, it is a measured quantity so following this rule, "how much" makes sense as an interrogative.


----------



## Josh_

Yes, that makes sense. It may be "quantity" that I am thinking of rather than "number."  It definitely does seem possible to say ما الرقم؟ or ما هو الرقم؟ when asking about a number, although I still prefer كم (I guess mainly because I have accustomed myself to applying that "rule of thumb" I mentioned earlier).  The version "ما هو" sounds better to me than just "ما" by itself (perhaps because ما is actually referring to هو and not the number itself).

I'm trying to think back and I believe I have heard constructions like رقم التلفون/البريد كم؟ much more than رقم التلفون/بريد إيه؟ (which is probably what led me to coming up with the idea that كم and قد إيش/إيه (and variants) are the interrogatives used with numbers).

Likewise, for square roots, it seems more correct to me to say كم الجذر التربيعي لـخمسة than ما (هو) الجذر التربيعي لخمسة, but the latter does not sound bad either, although I guess I have no real justification for this other than what I said in my previous post.


----------



## cherine

Josh_ said:


> Likewise, for square roots, it seems more correct to me to say كم الجذر التربيعي لـخمسة than ما (هو) الجذر التربيعي لخمسة, but the latter does not sound bad either, although I guess I have no real justification for this other than what I said in my previous post.


I have to disagree with this one ya Josh. When asking about الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي the أداة الاستفهام use is ما (what) not كم (how much).


----------



## Josh_

I stand corrected.  I must be hypercorrecting.

What about the other examples I mentioned (رقم التلفون/البريد كم؟)?


----------



## cherine

It's correct, although we say in Egyptian نمرة تليفونك كام nemret telefoonak kaam.
And we don't usually ask about the postal number, so I hesitate to comment on this one.


----------



## Josh_

cherine said:


> It's correct,


Thanks for the confirmation.  It's for this reason why I think we need to be careful when comparing the English "how much" with the Arabic كم (this goes for other interrogatives as well).  It may be that most of the time their meanings overlap, but there are differences, such the example of the telephone.  Another I can think of is the English "How old are you?" or "What is your age? which would be كم عمرك in Arabic.



> although we say in Egyptian نمرة تليفونك كام nemret telefoonak kaam.
> And we don't usually ask about the postal number, so I hesitate to comment on this one.


Yes, of course.  I think I got carried away with my use of رقم, which is generally used for numbers on a list, whereas نمرة is "number" in general.



> I have to disagree with this one ya Josh. When asking about الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي the أداة الاستفهام use is ما (what) not كم (how much).


Going back to this for a moment, I am curious whether you prefer "ما الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي" or "ما هو الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي"?  

By the way, is الجذر التكعيبي really used to mean square root also?  I would have thought it would be cubed root.


----------



## cherine

Josh_ said:


> Yes, of course. I think I got carried away with my use of رقم, which is generally used for numbers on a list, whereas نمرة is "number" in general.


To be accurate, the word "raqam" is not incorrect. For example, the caller ID is called جهاز إظهار رقم الطالب and many Egyptians say it this way (or use the shorter form إظهار الرقم , something like تليفوني فيه إظهار رقم = My phone has caller ID). And they pronounce the q as q, not hamza.
Some of us say رقم تليفون instead of نمرة تليفون . So, both are correct in Egyptian.


> Going back to this for a moment, I am curious whether you prefer "ما الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي" or "ما هو الجذر التربيعي/التكعيبي"?


I don't know if it's a matter of personal preference or of common usage, but I think it's almost always ما هو not just maa.


> By the way, is الجذر التكعيبي really used to mean square root also? I would have thought it would be cubed root.


Of course not, sorry if I gave a wrong idea. التكعيبي is certainly "cubed", I just put them both because asking about them follow the same structre:

ما هو الجذر التربيعي لـ4؟
ما هو الجذر التكعيبي لـ9؟


----------



## aurelien.demarest

Hi guys,

if كم الساعة is the most appropriated translation for "what time is it" can anybody tell me how to say "what time *was* it" please?
Example:
_what time was it_ when you called your wife last night?

Thanks
Aurélien


----------



## analeeh

كم كانت الساعة عندما اتصلت بزوجتك ليلة أمس؟

In Syrian:

قديش كانت الساعة لما رنيت على مرتك ليلة امبارحة؟

You can also say for 'what time is it now':

قديش صارت الساعة؟

Literally 'how much has the hour become?'


----------



## Abu Talha

I subscribe to ما الساعة being more correct than كم الساعة. See here:
http://www.alfaseeh.com/vb/showthread.php?t=79735&p=606777&viewfull=1#post606777


----------



## singleman582000

Hello every one,basically,its common in all arabic accents کم الساعه but in Iraqi Arabic they say ساعه اشگد ساعشگدor in syrian عدیش الساعه


----------



## aurelien.demarest

interesting... thanks singleman582000!


----------

