Unit 1 · Hello and who are you?

Talking to a man, talking to a woman

Capitals mark the emphatic letters, 3 is ع and 7 is ح, and ' is the glottal stop that Cairo uses for q.

You can hear in Egyptian Arabic whether someone's speaking to a man or to a woman. It lives in short endings. "Your" is -ak to a man and -ik to a woman: 'ezzayyak and 'ezzayyik (how are you?), 'ashoofak and 'ashoofik bokra (see you tomorrow). The pronoun splits the same way, 'enta and 'enti, and so do commands. Everyday writing usually leaves that vowel out, so on a phone screen both look like ـك. In speech it's the first thing a listener catches. This course always writes the vowel, and the English line says who's being spoken to.