# happy birthday to you



## metis

hi to everybody! is there anybody there who knows how to say "happy birthday to you" in arabic? it is for a dedication on a book!! thank you all in advance, giulio-metis


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## goheels

Sorry, I can't type in Arabic butI think yom al-walad sa'id lak(a/i/um) should be happy birthday.  'Eid Sa'id is happy holidays in general.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

*عيد ملادك سعيد *
*Eid miladak sa3eed*


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## metis

thank you both of you my friend will be delighted giulio


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## panjabigator

Does it differ per dialect?


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## Whodunit

CarlosPerezMartinez said:
			
		

> *عيد ملادك سعيد *
> *Eid miladak sa3eed*


 
I'm not 100 % sure, but I think there was one mistake and one typo in your translation. It should be:

*!عيد ميلاد سعيد*

A more precise transliteration should be:

3iid miilaad sa3iid


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

You are completely right. I am sorry. I am definitely getting old. As I say below: *ليت الشباب يعود يوما *


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## elroy

I just want to confirm that the correct translation is indeed the one in post 6. 

Regarding your question, Panjabigator: Yes, there are dialectal differences.  The version Whodunit offered is in standard Arabic (which would be suitable in a dedication of a book).


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## Arabelle

And just in case that was not cleared up before, happy birthday to you is: 
عيد ميلاد سعيد

Because when it as corrected, the yaa and daal seemed disconnected.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

Arabelle said:
			
		

> And just in case that was not cleared up before, happy birthday to you is:
> عيد ميلاد سعيد


 
In my opinion *عيد ميلاد سعيد*  means "Merry Christmas" being *ميلاد* just "birthday" and for Christians the birthday of Christ, i.e., Christmas. If you want to say "Happy birthday" you have to add the pronoun to make it "your bithday". Therefore: *عيد ميلادك سعيد *


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## Arabelle

CarlosPerezMartinez said:
			
		

> In my opinion *عيد ميلاد سعيد*  means "Merry Christmas" being *ميلاد* just "birthday" and for Christians the birthday of Christ, i.e., Christmas. If you want to say "Happy birthday" you have to add the pronoun to make it "your bithday". Therefore: *عيد ميلادك سعيد *


I have to disagree with you here, because if you want to personalize your wish, you only need to add [ya (name)], otherwise adding 'ka' sounds wrong to my ears.

As for 'Merry Christmas', I heard it in Arabic as: *عيد ميلاد مجيد.*


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

Thank you Arabelle, I didn`t know that. Is wonderful how much I am learning in this forum


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Perhaps it's slightly off the topic, but I've heard the song "Happy Birthday to you" sung in Arabic as "sana hilwa alayk"  (sorry for the transliteration - I can't get my computer to put out the Arabic properly).


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## Josh_

I've heard it, in Egypt anyway, as "sana Hilwa, ya gamiil."


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## cherine

I think you mean سنة حلوة إلِك the "alayk" or "elek" is = to you, like I wish "to you" a happy year/birthday. It's like what Arabelle said : 



> if you want to personalize your wish, you only need to add [ya (name)],


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## elroy

Arabelle said:
			
		

> I have to disagree with you here, because if you want to personalize your wish, you only need to add [ya (name)], otherwise adding 'ka' sounds wrong to my ears.



It sounds wrong because it _is_ wrong. 
Carlos, think about it this way: you wouldn't say "feliz tu cumpleaños" in Spanish, would you?   That's what عيد ميلادك سعيد sounds like. 

Or think about it this way: عيد ميلادك is definite and سعيد is indefinite, so they can't go together.

Or think about it this way: the expression is a short way to say أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد.

The only thing عيد ميلادك سعيد can mean is "Your birthday is happy." 



> As for 'Merry Christmas', I heard it in Arabic as: *عيد ميلاد مجيد.*


Yes.  عيد ميلاد سعيد can also be used.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

elroy said:
			
		

> [/color][/size][/font][/color][/size][/font]
> It sounds wrong because it _is_ wrong.
> Carlos, think about it this way: you wouldn't say "feliz tu cumpleaños" in Spanish, would you?  That's what عيد ميلادك سعيد sounds like.
> 
> Or think about it this way: عيد ميلادك is definite and سعيد is indefinite, so they can't go together.
> 
> Or think about it this way: the expression is a short way to say أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد.
> 
> The only thing عيد ميلادك سعيد can mean is "Your birthday is happy."
> Yes. عيد ميلاد سعيد can also be used.


 
When you say it sounds wrong do you mean awkward  ?
Ok, correct me if I am wrong, I will be glad, but عيد ميلادك is definite and سعيد is indefinite as you say and therefore they can go together in a sentence like باب بيتك مفتوح "the door of your house is open" in عيد ميلادك سعيد you say "the Eid (holiday) of your birthday is happy". I don`t see a grammatical problem here and I did learn the sentence that way. What happens in my opinion is that may be you are not used to it because in dialects you use other ways to say the same and MSA sounds awkward.


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## cherine

Josh Adkins said:
			
		

> I've heard it, in Egypt anyway, as "sana Hilwa, ya gamiil."


I just saw this post now (we've posted in the same moment -again- Josh  )
Yes, this is correct, but we only say it in the song
sana Hilwa ya gamiil (2 times)
sana Hilwa ya (x)
sana Hilwa ya gamiil
(sung on the same rythm of Happy Birthday to you).

But when I want to wish a happy birthday to someone, I wouldn't use it, I'd say : كل سنة وانت طيب/طيبة  (colloquial Arabic of Egypt)


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## cherine

> Origianlly posted by *CarlosPerezMartinez*
> When you say it sounds wrong do you mean awkward  ?
> Ok, correct me if I am wrong, I will be glad, but عيد ميلادك is definite and سعيد is indefinite as you say and therefore they can go together in a sentence like باب بيتك مفتوح "the door of your house is open" in عيد ميلادك سعيد you say "the Eid (holiday) of your birthday is happy". I don`t see a grammatical problem here and I did learn the sentence that way. What happens in my opinion is that may be you are not used to it because in dialects you use other ways to say the same and MSA sounds awkward.


You're right Carlos, the sentence عيد ميلادك سعيد is grammatically correct, in fact it's a sentence more complete than عيد ميلاد سعيد .
BUT.. there's a difference in meaning between the two "forms" :
When you use a complete sentence like this, it will sound like a statement, whereas using the "incomplete" اسم+صفة makes it sounds as what it is : a wish.
What do you think ?


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

cherine said:
			
		

> What do you think ?


 
Actually is not a matter of what do I think but what did I learn. Through this forum I started to doubt about many things I learned when I studied Arabic only to discover that for natives they sound wrong, awkward or incorrect. I do not have any preference on how to say "happy birthday" in Arabic, but it happens that I just learned it that way. There are many strange things in Arabic that I just learned without questioning if they sounded wrong or not. For example: "Ahlan wasahlan". Is it a right way to say "hello"? Well, I learned that beduins used to say to a visitor "here you find a family and a plain land/plateau". From there we have Ahlan wasahlan. But if you think about it is a strange way of saying "hello".
I do not pretend to know Arabic better than natives, but I just want to have convincing proofs (from the grammatical point of view) that some expressions in Arabic sound awkward or are just simply wrong.
Do you get my point?


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## MarcB

Carlos, I understand your point about wanting to know why some things are wrong. Also I can say the natives here have demonstrated a great knowledge of both MSA and colloquial. There are of course some Arabs who only know colloquial but that is not the case here. Sometimes a phrase can be grammatically correct but lack the necessary nuances.I too have learned some things that I later found out were not the best choices, that is the fault of many texts in Arabic, although they are getting better. So yes I get your point.


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## Josh_

cherine said:
			
		

> I just saw this post now (we've posted in the same moment -again- Josh  )
> Yes, this is correct, but we only say it in the song
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil (2 times)
> sana Hilwa ya (x)
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil
> (sung on the same rythm of Happy Birthday to you).
> 
> But when I want to wish a happy birthday to someone, I wouldn't use it, I'd say : كل سنة وانت طيب/طيبة  (colloquial Arabic of Egypt)


ma-na a3rif.   I was only referring to the song as I was responding to Thomas O'Gara's post right above mine.  I actually celebrated my birthday in Egypt one year and had this song sung for me as well as the usual well wish كل سنة وانت طيب.  kalt torta laziiza il-yoom da.


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## elroy

CarlosPerezMartinez said:
			
		

> When you say it sounds wrong do you mean awkward  ?
> Ok, correct me if I am wrong, I will be glad, but عيد ميلادك is definite and سعيد is indefinite as you say and therefore they can go together in a sentence like باب بيتك مفتوح "the door of your house is open" in عيد ميلادك سعيد you say "the Eid (holiday) of your birthday is happy". I don`t see a grammatical problem here and I did learn the sentence that way. What happens in my opinion is that may be you are not used to it because in dialects you use other ways to say the same and MSA sounds awkward.


 عيد ميلادك سعيد is *definitely* incorrect as a translation of "happy birthday." As I said before, it can only mean "Your birthday is happy" - or in Spanish, "Tu cumpleaños es feliz." In such situations, of course it is permissible - in fact, it is obligatory - to combine a definite noun with an indefinite adjective, because the adjective is predicative and not attributive (by the way, this also applies to the "door" sentence).

The classical "happy birthday" wish, however, is _not_ a complete sentence. It is _part_ of a complete sentence that is normally not said.

That is, in English we say "happy birthday" instead of "I wish you a happy birthday."
In Spanish, one says "feliz cumpleaños" instead of "Te deseo un cumpleaños feliz."
And so on and so forth.

The same applies to Arabic. Instead of saying, أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد, we say only the object and the rest of the sentence is understood.

عيد ميلاد سعيد is, therefore, a _noun phrase _and not a whole sentence. It is composed of an indefinite noun (plus an indefinite مضاف إليه) and an indefinite adjective. As I'm sure you know, an attributive adjective in Arabic has to be indefinite if the noun it is describing is indefinite, and vice versa. Such is not the case with a predicative adjective.

In Arabic terminology: يكون *النعت* معرف إذا كان الاسم المنعوت معرف، ويكون غير معرف إذا كان الاسم المنعوت غير معرف. أما *الخبر* فيكون دائماً غير معرف بالرغم من أن المبتدأ دائماً معرف.

So as soon as you see a definite noun coupled with an indefinite adjective, you know that you have a مبتدأ وخبر (a complete sentence) and not اسم وصفة (a simple noun-adjective pair).

I hope that helps clarify things.


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## cherine

> Originally posted by *CarlosPerezMartinez*
> I do not pretend to know Arabic better than natives, but I just want to have convincing proofs (from the grammatical point of view) that some expressions in Arabic sound awkward or are just simply wrong.
> Do you get my point?


Of course Carlos, I understand what you mean.
This is why I explained in my last post the difference between the two expressions عيد ميلادك سعيد - عيد ميلاد سعيد that one is a جملة تقريرية and the other connotes a wish. The same was explained in details by Elroy (great explanation by the way  )
We didn't just say : this *sounds* correct and that doesn't, but we explained the grammatical and connotation differences between the two expressions. And I hope we did an acceptable job


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

elroy said:
			
		

> عيد ميلادك سعيد is *definitely* incorrect as a translation of "happy birthday." As I said before, it can only mean "Your birthday is happy" - or in Spanish, "Tu cumpleaños es feliz." In such situations, of course it is permissible - in fact, it is obligatory - to combine a definite noun with an indefinite adjective, because the adjective is predicative and not attributive (by the way, this also applies to the "door" sentence).
> 
> The classical "happy birthday" wish, however, is _not_ a complete sentence. It is _part_ of a complete sentence that is normally not said.
> 
> That is, in English we say "happy birthday" instead of "I wish you a happy birthday."
> In Spanish, one says "feliz cumpleaños" instead of "Te deseo un cumpleaños feliz."
> And so on and so forth.
> 
> The same applies to Arabic. Instead of saying, أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد, we say only the object and the rest of the sentence is understood.
> 
> عيد ميلاد سعيد is, therefore, a _noun phrase _and not a whole sentence. It is composed of an indefinite noun (plus an indefinite مضاف إليه) and an indefinite adjective. As I'm sure you know, an attributive adjective in Arabic has to be indefinite if the noun it is describing is indefinite, and vice versa. Such is not the case with a predicative adjective.
> 
> In Arabic terminology: يكون *النعت* معرف إذا كان الاسم المنعوت معرف، ويكون غير معرف إذا كان الاسم المنعوت غير معرف. أما *الخبر* فيكون دائماً غير معرف بالرغم من أن المبتدأ دائماً معرف.
> 
> So as soon as you see a definite noun coupled with an indefinite adjective, you know that you have a مبتدأ وخبر (a complete sentence) and not اسم وصفة (a simple noun-adjective pair).
> 
> I hope that helps clarify things.


 
Dear Elroy, 
I really appreciate your deep explanations on the subject but I still have some doubts. I know in most languages (including Spanish) a sentence like "happy birthday" means "I wish you a happy birthday". In this sense we all understand the complete sentence and I do understand your Arabic version أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد (Actually this sentence written like that is grammatically incorrect, but let's pass that one). In the Arabic version I learned we should understand
أتمنى أن يكون عيد ميلادك سعيدا . 
As we understand the verb كان and we do not write it we say سعيد instead of سعيدا . 
But don't forget that I am still learning and un-learning Arabic


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## elroy

CarlosPerezMartinez said:
			
		

> In this sense we all understand the complete sentence and I do understand your Arabic version أتمنى لك عيد ميلاد سعيد (Actually this sentence written like that is grammatically incorrect, but let's pass that one).


 Yes, I know, it's missing the اً at the end of the last word, but I was typing fast and wasn't paying attention to inflections. Thanks anyway.  


> In the Arabic version I learned we should understand
> أتمنى أن يكون عيد ميلادك سعيدا .
> As we understand the verb كان and we do not write it we say سعيد instead of سعيدا .


 Even if that were the original sentence you could not say عيد ميلادك سعيد. Let's go back to Spanish. Would you convert "Espero que tu cumpleaños sea feliz" to "Tu cumpleaños feliz"? 

If Arabic couldn't drop the verb "to be" in the present tense the phrase would not make any sense at all, but because it does, it can mean "Your birthday is happy" - but under no circumstances can it mean "Happy birthday." 

I really don't know why you were taught this, but I can tell you for sure that it is wrong.


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## lalih

Hi, would anyone know how to say and write "happy birthday to a special soul" in Moroccan Arabic? this is to be written in a card or email. Many thanks 



cherine said:


> I just saw this post now (we've posted in the same moment -again- Josh  )
> Yes, this is correct, but we only say it in the song
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil (2 times)
> sana Hilwa ya (x)
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil
> (sung on the same rythm of Happy Birthday to you).
> 
> But when I want to wish a happy birthday to someone, I wouldn't use it, I'd say : كل سنة وانت طيب/طيبة (colloquial Arabic of Egypt)


 
Hi, cherine, would the Egyptian colloquialism mean the same in Moroccan Arabic? Thanks


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## cherine

Hi, Lalih,

I don't know if they use the same expression, but I know that it would certainly be understood. But remember that this is the song, not the usual expression to wish a happy birthday to someone. In Egypt, we say "koll sana wenta tayyeb" (to a male) and "koll sana wenti tayyeba" to a female.


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## lalih

hi cherine  sorry for late reply. many thanks your kind help. so i can write this "romanised" arabic in a card? how do you write it in classic arabic which can be understood my most? thanks again


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## lalih

lalih said:


> Hi, would anyone know how to say and write "happy birthday to a special soul" in Moroccan Arabic? this is to be written in a card or email. Many thanks
> 
> Hi, cherine, would the Egyptian colloquialism mean the same in Moroccan Arabic? Thanks


 
hi cherine  sorry to bother u again. i need to check the last part (from the right) of your arabic sentence is for male or female person? i am trying to write "happy brithday to you" for a male friend. thank u again for your kind help


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## cherine

Hi lalih,
For lack of a Moroccan version, I think you can write "koll sana wenta tayyeb" or "Eed milad sa'id". Both would be fine too, but start with Eed milad sa'id (=litteraly: happy birthday) then the other one.


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## lalih

cherine said:


> I just saw this post now (we've posted in the same moment -again- Josh  )
> Yes, this is correct, but we only say it in the song
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil (2 times)
> sana Hilwa ya (x)
> sana Hilwa ya gamiil
> (sung on the same rythm of Happy Birthday to you).
> 
> But when I want to wish a happy birthday to someone, I wouldn't use it, I'd say : كل سنة وانت طيب/طيبة (colloquial Arabic of Egypt)


 
thank u so much for your kindness n patience, Cherine  i really don't want to make mistake, so i should write "Eed milad sa'id, koll sana wenta tayyeb" (=happy birthday, happy birthday to a special soul"?). 

also, please clarify your arabic writing above (in colloquial egyptian arabic) for "happy birthday" is for male or female? so, writing from right to left, the part before the " / (slash) " is for male? 

thank u again, cherine, i am just starting to try learn this language and is difficult for me. i am learning by reading this forum which is a big help   thanks again


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## cherine

lalih said:


> Thank you so much for your kindness and patience, Cherine  I really don't want to make mistake, so I should write "Eed milad sa'id, koll sana wenta tayyeb" (=happy birthday, happy birthday to a special soul"?).


You're most welcome, Lalih. 
Yes, you can write that. koll sana wenta tayyeb doesn't mean "happy birthday to a special soul" (we could make a literal translation for that but I wouldn't sound natural in Arabic) it means: "may you be well every year".
Also, please note that you should use proper writing standards in the forum (capital letters, punctuation and full words). 


> also, please clarify your arabic writing above (in colloquial egyptian arabic) for "happy birthday" is for male or female? so, writing from right to left, the part before the " / (slash) " is for male?


I didn't put the Arabic because I didn't know if you can write it, but here's the Arabic of the above sentences:
عيد ميلاد سعيد، وكل سنة وانت طيب


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## nn.om

Can we just say عيداً سعيداً لكَ ? Like حجاً مبروراً وسعياً مشكوراً


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## lalih

Oops, Cherine, thank you for reminder on how to post correctly (much appreciated you kindly put it in small print  ) I am too used to texting 

You have solved big situation for me and I am very grateful. Now, I won't embarrass myself by writing/wishing wrongly on special occasion because you were so patient and took the time to answer each question  A big hug to you  Many thanks


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## cherine

nn.om said:


> Can we just say عيداً سعيداً لكَ ? Like حجاً مبروراً وسعياً مشكوراً


Theoretically, yes we can. But it can create confusion because we use this wish for عيد الفطر and عيد الأضحى. For birthdays, we clearly mention that it's a عيد ميلاد .



lalih said:


> A big hug to you  Many thanks


You're most welcome.  A hug back to you.


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## nn.om

cherine said:


> Theoretically, yes we can. But it can create confusion because we use this wish for عيد الفطر and عيد الأضحى. For birthdays, we clearly mention that it's a عيد ميلاد .


 
Oops, I mean ميلاداً سعيداً لكَ  ?


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## cherine

You mean dropping the word عيد ? I think this can cause confusion. It can be mistaken for a wish for a rebirth or for a child's birth.
I think عيد ميلاد سعيد لك is actually manSuuba too (except for sa3iid, because we pronounce the words with final sukuun anyway): عيدَ ميلادٍ سعيدًا so what you say is right, it's just a difference in pronounciation more than in the grammar.


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