# Would you like to go to the winter formal with me?



## narwal

hello, I've met a girl this year and I'm really starting to like her, I've also heard her say that she loves to speak Arabic  I want to ask her to go to our schools winter formal dance and I want to ask in Arabic  standard form, so far in my search I've come up with "Tisrab dahaba" which i think means "would you like to go to..." but i could really use help making sure as well as finding the other words. Thank you so much if you have any information that may help.


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## tr463

Do you happen to know what dialect she speaks? That would make big difference (in my opinion) because then you could know what dialect to use


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## narwal

is Oman a city? because she loves that place and that could be a clue.


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## narwal

am I correct with what I've come up with so far?


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## cherine

No, I'm afraid not.

You can use Standard Arabic: atawaddiin adh-dhihaaba ma3i ila 7aflat ir-raqsesh-shitwiyya? 

It's not a 100% accurate translation, but it's the closed I could come up with, I skipped the "formal" part, and only made it "the winter dancing party". For the pronunciation, the "dh" is like the "th" of "the/that", the "3" refer to a sound that doesn't exist in Arabic, the closest you can do -as you're not interested in learning the language itself" is to just drop it. The doubled vowels mean that the vowel is long, and the doubled consonent indicate a stress in the pronounciation. If you prefer to send her the request in writing, here it is:
أَتَوَدِّين الذهاب معي إلى حفلة الرقص الشتوية؟


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

I don't think what you came with in your search is correct, at least, not to my knowledge.
Here's my input:
Formal Arabic: "atawaddina athahaba ma'ae/mae ela haflat arraqs alshetawiya?"
Omani/gulf dialect: "weddek troheen ma'ae/mae le haflat arraqs alshetawiya?"
In case you have a hard time pronouncing it correctly, let me know


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## narwal

thank you both so much, also i would like to add that i am in fact interested in learning arabic, but my school only has a spanish class and any other language class goes through the local community college, which i dont think is completely free, but i am definitely planning on learning different languages in the future. again, thank you both very much.


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## narwal

also mohammed, I'm guessing that the slashes mean that i can alternate between ma'ae and mae right?


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## narwal

and what does the 7 in "7aflat" sound like?


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

Yes, they do. But what I was trying to imply more by the slashes was the way you would properly pronounce the word (معي) In Arabic, and since I didn't know how to put it using English characters, I put it in two forms just in case you didn't know how to pronounce one of them. 
Actually, the proper equivalent form of the word (معي) in English characters is "ma3ee", but I figured it would be such a hassle for me to explain how the character "3" is pronounced, and for you to grasp it since this letter has no equivalent in any other language (including English). But now that I really want to clear your doubts, I will try to explain how to pronounce it. 
It's basically pronounced from the top of your throat, like you're trying to imitate a lion's roar.


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## narwal

I think i see what you mean, would it be kind of a scratchy sound or would it be more like something more akin to yodeling (a bit more throat in the pronunciation)?


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## narwal

And what sound is 7 supposed to make?


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## tr463

narwal said:


> And what sound is 7 supposed to make?



http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Arabic/Arabic_sounds


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

Yes it's more of a scratchy sound, a bit more like the burp sound (lol I know it's disgusting but yeah).


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

For the "7", it's sort of a strong breathy kind of "h". The reason why I put it simply as "h" in my first response was to not make things look more complex than they really are.


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## narwal

Just one more thing, how do you say yes and no in arabic, i would like to know in case she wants to respond in arabic.


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

Yes = Na3am
No = La
Good luck having her say "Na3am" .


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## narwal

I hope so, I've pretty much memorized all three ways to say it, again thank you very much.


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## narwal

oh actually i had a question about "athahaba". is the "atha" part pronounced like you spelled it, or is it pronounce at-ha?


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## Mohammed Lahmadi

Yes it's pronounced like I spelled it, probably you'll have to stress on the "th" part to sound more natural.


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