# The text in these four articles is identical



## jmt356

I would like to state, "The text in these four articles is identical."

Suggestion: 
النص الموجود في هذه المواد الأربعة متطابق

Your suggestions? 

Additional context: 
1. I drafted the English and the Arabic. 
2. This is for a study I am drafting. 
3. The language is MSA. 
4. I want to express that there are four articles. The articles have text. The text in the four articles is identical. For example, I have four articles that state, "You are required to respect the rules." All of the articles state the same thing. 
5. I want to confirm that the Arabic is correct and accurate.


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## jack_1313

متطابق is used for "identical", but my fear in this context is that it could be misunderstood to mean that the texts "match" in the sense that they are consistent, compatible, or in harmony with each other.

Also, your number agreement between مواد and أربعة is incorrect.

I would write
النصوص الواردة في هذه المواد الأربع متشابهة تماما
or simply
هذه المواد الأربع متشابهة تماما


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## elroy

متشابهة means "similar," so متشابهة تمامًا doesn't really work for me (does "completely similar" = "identical"?). 

My suggestion:

تحتوي كل من هذه المواد الأربع على نفس/ذات النص


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## jmt356

jack_1313 said:


> Also, your number agreement between مواد and أربعة is incorrect.



I understand the Reverse Agreement Rule applies for nouns that are numbered from 3 to 9 when the number precedes the noun. For example:
سبْعة كتب | seven books
أربع مواد | four articles

However, in this case, the number follows the noun:
المواد الأربعة

I read that in this case, the number agrees with the gender of the noun (here, feminine, since there is a plural of an inanimate object). I cannot identify where I read this rule at the moment, but the many online guides to numbers all give examples of the Reverse Agreement Rule where the number precedes the noun (see, for example, Arabic Number-gender Agreement and More). 

Did I misunderstand this rule?


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## jack_1313

elroy said:


> متشابهة means "similar," so متشابهة تمامًا doesn't really work for me (does "completely similar" = "identical"?).



English dictionaries do give "identical" and variations of "to be the same" for تشابه and متشابه, and I have seen it with this meaning "in the field", but the same thought occurred to me, so I tried to add تماما to narrow the meaning.



> نفس/ذات النص



My professor always insisted that نفس, when used to mean "the same", can only precede the noun in question when it is a living thing. Otherwise, نفس must come after, i.e. النص نفسه. But I must admit, I have totally disregarded this supposed rule on the basis that it is impractical, out of line with common parlance, and probably archaic.


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## Ibn Nacer

Salut,

Is there a word in Arabic meaning "identical", whatever the context?


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## elroy

jmt356 said:


> Did I misunderstand this rule?


Yes, it seems that you did.  It's the same rule whether the numeral comes before or after:
أربعة أولاد، أولاد أربعة، الأولاد الأربعة
أربع بنات، بنات أربع، البنات الأربع


jack_1313 said:


> English dictionaries do give "identical" and variations of "to be the same" for تشابه and متشابه


With the caveat that there may be relevant contexts I'm not thinking of, that seems inaccurate to me.


jack_1313 said:


> I have seen it with this meaning "in the field"


I'd be interested in specific examples, and in whether the meaning was 100% unambiguous.


jack_1313 said:


> My professor always insisted that نفس, when used to mean "the same", can only precede the noun in question when it is a living thing. Otherwise, نفس must come after, i.e. النص نفسه.


I've never heard of this rule, and it certainly doesn't apply to Palestinian Arabic.  This may be another one of those prescriptive rules that many people break in practice.


Ibn Nacer said:


> Is there a word in Arabic meaning "identical", whatever the context?


Probably not.  Perhaps you can give us a few different examples in different contexts and we can see if there's a single word that will fit in all of them?


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## jack_1313

jmt356 said:


> This is how Google translate translates as well (see, for example, Google Translate, which states, "المقالات الأربعة," not "المقالات الأربع").


The problem here is that an "article" in this sense can be a مقالة _or_ a مقال. I think Google translate is assuming the latter. Try with another word like سيارة or كتاب.


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## jmt356

elroy said:


> Yes, it seems that you did.  It's the same rule whether the numeral comes before or after:
> أربعة أولاد، أولاد أربعة، الأولاد الأربعة
> أربع بنات، بنات أربع، البنات الأربع
> 
> With the caveat that there may be relevant contexts I'm not thinking of, that seems inaccurate to me.
> 
> I'd be interested in specific examples, and in whether the meaning was 100% unambiguous.
> 
> I've never heard of this rule, and it certainly doesn't apply to Palestinian Arabic.  This may be another one of those prescriptive rules that many people break in practice.
> 
> Probably not.  Perhaps you can give us a few different examples in different contexts and we can see if there's a single word that will fit in all three?


I just took a closer look at the translation Google Translate was giving for "four articles" (المقالات الأربعة). As it turns out, the Reverse Agreement Rule was in fact being used. I assumed مقالات was the plural of a feminine noun, due to the presence of ـات. In fact, it is the plural of a masculine noun (مقال), so Google was applying the Reverse Agreement Rule in rendering the translation المقالات الأربعة.


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## Ibn Nacer

Thank you Elroy.



jmt356 said:


> I just took a closer look at the translation Google Translate was giving for "four articles" (المقالات الأربعة). As it turns out, the Reverse Agreement Rule was in fact being used. I assumed مقالات was the plural of a feminine noun, due to the presence of ـات. In fact, it is the plural of a masculine noun (مقال), so Google was applying the Reverse Agreement Rule in rendering the translation المقالات الأربعة.


But the word مَقَالَة exists so the word مقالات is probably its plural, right ?


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## jmt356

Ibn Nacer said:


> Thank you Elroy.
> 
> But the word مَقَالَة exists so the word مقالات is probably its plural, right ?


I think Google Translate was using مقالات as the plural of مقال, not مقالة, because it rendered "four" as "اربعة" and in other examples where the number followed the noun, Google Translate applied the Reverse Agreement Rule (for example, المنازل الأربعة).


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## Ibn Nacer

Ok, I did not find the plural of the word مقال in the dictionaries I consulted, Google is better informed ...


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## jack_1313

elroy said:


> I'd be interested in specific examples, and in whether the meaning was 100% unambiguous.



A few comments:

1. You’re right – I searched for occurrences of متشابهة in my archives, and in each case, I could not say definitively that the meaning was “identical” or “the same” and not merely “similar”. Consider this example:

وبالرغم من تغير الحكومات والمسؤولين عدة مرات منذ ثورة 25 يناير، فإن طريقة تعاملهم مع هذا الملف كانت متشابهة

Did the various governments deal with the issue in the same way? Or just in similar ways?

2. There’s plenty of examples of متشابهة تماما online. That begs the question, what does “exactly similar” mean if not “identical”?

3. The use of متشابهة and متشابهة تماما and variants thereof for “identical” seems to be particularly common in texts that have been translated into Arabic. For example, in the English original, this UN document reads

_With respect to the claim where the claimant produced declarations from third parties in Kuwait, the Panel was not satisfied that the declarations amounted to credible evidence as, not only were they obtained in 2001, but they were identically worded._

The Arabic version reads

وفيما يتعلق بالمطالبة التي استظهر فيها صاحبها بتصريحات من أطراف ثالثة في الكويت، لم يكن الفريق مقتنعا بأن التصريحات تعتبر أدلة موثوقة بما أنها لم ت قد م إلا في عام 2001 فضلا عن كونها قد صيغت صياغة متشابهة كليا

This Arabic academic article says, in relation to legal translation, the following:

الهدف المعياري:
تهدف الترجمة القانونية إلى عملية انتاج نص قانوني متشابه تماما في القضاء متعدد اللغات، كالقانون الكندي مثلا، الذي يصدر النص القانوني فيه باللغتين الفرنسية والإنجليزية، وهو الأمر ذات بالنسبة للنصوص الصادرة من قبل مختلف هيئات الأمم المتحدة

Here, the authors cite an English book, the relevant section of which appears to read

_Firstly, there is legal translation for normative purpose. It refers to the production of equally authentic legal texts in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions of domestic laws and international legal instruments and other laws._

So it seems that the Arab authors approximated “equally authentic” as "the same” or “identical” and from there arrived at متشابهة تماما. (I should point out that I don’t particularly like aspects of the Arabic phrasing, e.g. تهدف إلى عملية ما – what does it mean to “aim toward the process of” something?)

4. Nevertheless, this usage does sometimes show its (ugly?) face in texts that seem to be originally Arabic. For example, this Saudi educational article instructs readers to drop أوراق متشابهة تماما as part of an experiment to determine what factors influence how quickly things fall (though once again, I should point out that the article’s Arabic is hardly impeccable). And in perhaps the clearest example, this novel has a chapter titled التوائم ليست متشابهة تماما! (I’m assuming that a text authored by a person named أنيس منصور was originally Arabic).

5. This wall of text refers to نصوص متشابهة لحد التماثل. Evidently, the author considers متشابهة to mean “similar” and متماثلة to mean “identical”. This doesn’t quite sit right with me – في حالات مماثلة means “in such case”, not “in cases that are exactly the same as this one”.

That's about as far down the rabbit hole as I can go tonight.


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## Abbe

When the number follows the noun it can be treated as an adjective السيارات الأربعة or adhere to the rules of numbers السيارات الأربع

How about some rephrasing
الصيغ الواردة في هذه المواد الأربع هي في الحقيقة صيغة واحدة
Would that work?


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## Ibn Nacer

Salut,

In this example below we see the difference, the word متشابهة is translated by "similar" and that متشابهة تمامًا is translated by "identical" :

وهذه الصخور متشابهة ولكنها ليست متشابهة تمامًا مع تلك التي تنجم في القمم الجبلية البحرية.
These rocks are similar but not identical to those that are produced at ocean ridges.

But sometimes I saw * that the expression متشابهة تمامًا is translated by "quite similar", is it correct?
I'm not sure I understand what the expression "quite similar" means, can someone explain to me ? 

* Examples :


وتلاحظ اللجنة الاستشارية أن المهام المنوطة بشاغلي وظيفتي أخصائييْ البرامج ووظائف الموظفين المعنيين بحماية الطفل الثلاثة متشابهة تماماً.
The Advisory Committee notes that the functions of the two Programme Specialist posts and the three Child Protection Officer posts are quite similar.

فالعبارات الرئيسية متشابهة تماما: الطاقة، الاستقلال وتدخل القوى الكبرى.
The key words are quite similar: energy, independence and big-Power intervention.

المساكن التقليدية متشابهة تماما في مادورا وباويان.
Traditional dwellings are quite similar on the Madura and Bawean islands.


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## jack_1313

"Quite" is tricky word that I've seen badly translated many times because it can bear two very different meanings.

Sometimes, it means "rather", "somewhat", "fairly", "to some extent", and so on. Other times it means "very" and provides emphasis. In spoken discourse, the difference can come down entirely to tone.

In all your examples, I would argue that تماما as "quite" is a mistranslation. Without a speaker stressing "quite" in these instances, the meaning is "fairly similar" or "rather similar". I would probably use بعض الشيء or إلى حد or just drop the word entirely from the translation.


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## Ibn Nacer

Thank you.


jack_1313 said:


> In all your examples, I would argue that تماما as "quite" is a mistranslation. Without a speaker stressing "quite" in these instances, the meaning is "fairly similar" or "rather similar". I would probably use بعض الشيء or إلى حد or just drop the word entirely from the translation.


I think (I'm not sure) that the original text is in English and I think you are right, the meaning is "fairly similar" , "rather similar"... because in French it is translated by "assez similaire".



jack_1313 said:


> I would probably use بعض الشيء or إلى حد or just drop the word entirely from the translation.


Is it also possible to use (for example*) the word *تقريباً* instead of تماما in translations in Arabic ( I want to talk about the examples that I mentioned in my previous message) ?

-----

* I have seen examples where the words *متشابهة *and *تقريباً* were used to translate the expressions "quite similar" and "fairly similar" :

وبين عام # وعام # ، كانت نسب الرجال والنساء الذين لديهم أوراق عمل متشابهة تقريباً
Between # and # the percentages of employed men and women with working papers were *fairly similar*

لذا بالنظر للترجمة من لغة لأخرى ، فهي تقريباً متشابهة كلمة كلمة
So forgiving for the translations, they're almost literally word for word.

بيد أن نسبة “الأسر المؤلفة من زوجين يعولان أطفالا” والأسر المؤلفة من زوجين فقط” *متشابهة* الآن *تقريبا* وتبلغ # في المائة و # في المائة على التوالي
However, the proportion of “couple with children families” and “couple only families” are now *quite similar* at # *percent* and # percent respectively


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## jack_1313

I don't want to elaborate much further here for fear of veering off into an entirely new topic that warrants its own thread. Suffice to say, I certainly consider تقريبا and improvement over تماما in such contexts.

To return to the original topic, perhaps متشابهة إلى حد التطابق serves to resolve any potential ambiguity over the intent behind متطابقة?

Also, I was thinking more about تشابه and it occurred to me that the meaning is not merely "to be similar" but also to "resemble one another" or "look alike". From this angle the notion of متشابة تماما as "identical" does ostensibly make a little bit more sense.


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