Lesson 3 - Yes / No

!مرحبا

Understanding Arabic lesson 3 is here! In this lesson, you will learn how to say yes and no.



In Arabic, yes is:

نعم

[Na'am]

And no is: 

لا

[Laa]

Is this another simple lesson? Almost. There are a couple more uses for نعم [na'am]: 

1) Just like in English, if someone calls your name you can respond with "yes?" In Arabic when someone calls your name you can say نعم؟ [na'am] by raising your intonation. 

2) نعم can sometimes be used to mean "Pardon me, can you repeat that?/I didn't hear you./I didn't understand./What did you say?"

3) If, for example, you overhear something ridiculous, you can say نعم!؟ to mean "Excuse me!?". It all depends on attitude and tone of voice.

To learn more about نعم and لا, listen to the podcast provided below. 

Sample sentences: 

A: Basem! (boy's name) 

B: !نعم؟ 

A: Did you eat my cookie?

B: لا. Did YOU eat my cookie? 

C: نعم, I ate both cookies. 

Yes and no in Arabic is similar to yes and no in English. Just substitute yes and no with نعم and لا. 

Lastly, there is two more words we would like to introduce: 

صح

That's right. You're right. Right. [Sah]

In spoken Arabic, you use صح [sah] in the same way you would use "right". For example:  

A: You wore a green sweater yesterday, صح?
B: صح!

However, the word بلى is used to respond to a negative statement or question. It has the meaning of "but, we did! / but it did happen! / but yes!" "On the contrary, yes; in fact, yes; actually, yes" :

بلى

[Bala]

Sample dialogue:

A: You don't know how to tie your shoes. Let me help you..

B: بلى I do know how! I can do it myself. 

That's it for this lesson. Happy studying! 

!مع السلامة