Unit 3 · Numbers, phones and the time

What time is it?

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

es-saa3a kaam? asks the time. Answer with es-saa3a and the hour: es-saa3a talaata, "it's three". Then add the minutes in chunks: we-nuSS (and a half), we-rub3 (and a quarter), we-tilt (and a third, twenty minutes), 'ella rub3 (a quarter to). So es-saa3a 'arba3a 'ella rub3 is a quarter to four. One o'clock is es-saa3a wa7da, feminine, because saa3a is.