قدّيش: How Much and How Many

Lebanese قديشʾaddēsh covers territory that English divides among “how much,” “how many,” “how long,” and “how + adjective.” The listener identifies the intended scale from what follows: a price, a noun, an adjective, or a time expression.

The spelling begins with ق, but urban Beirut speech normally realizes that letter as a glottal stop here: ʾaddēsh. A [q] pronunciation may belong to a speaker's regional or community variety, or to deliberate formalizing; it is not the production baseline silently mixed into this page.

Asking a price

For a direct price question, قديش حقّ...؟ means “How much does ... cost?” حقّ is literally “the price of.” When the item is already visible or active in the conversation, قديش؟ can stand alone.

The بـ in بقديش marks the price at which a deal happened: compare English “for how much?” Lebanese keeps that preposition attached to the question word rather than leaving it at the end. See Money and Prices for stating amounts and currencies.

Amounts and counts

Before something measured as a quantity, قديش asks “how much.” With people or countable things, it asks “how many.” Unlike English, the interrogative itself does not change form.

Both قديش شخص with a counting noun and قديش في كراسي with an existential clause are ordinary. Lebanese number–noun grammar is not obtained by mechanically copying English plural marking: the form of the noun varies with the construction and the numeral. With قديش, common plural nouns are frequent after في, while a unit or category noun may remain singular in compact counting questions. The Core Quantifiers page develops those noun patterns.

Degree: how far, how important, how well

Before an adjective or adverbial predicate, قديش asks for a point on a scale. English changes the second word—“how far,” “how difficult,” “how well”—but Lebanese keeps قديش and supplies the relevant predicate.

Context prevents ambiguity. قديش هالمطعم؟ beside a menu is likely about price; قديش بتحب هالمطعم؟ explicitly creates a scale of liking.

Duration and elapsed time

With وقت, قديش asks how much time something requires. It can also combine with صارلـ “have been ... for” to ask the duration of a state or ongoing activity.

These are different timelines. قديش بدها وقت؟ looks forward to the time needed; صارلك قديش ناطر؟ measures an ongoing interval; من قديش بلشتوا؟ measures backward from now to a starting point. English uses “how long” for the first two and “how long ago” for the third, so learners must preserve the Lebanese frame, not just translate قديش.

Position and echo readings

Initial قديش is a safe neutral order, but Lebanese also leaves it in the slot where the missing amount belongs. Final position is particularly common when the speaker is checking surprising information.

The two orders are not mechanically “formal” versus “informal.” Information structure and intonation matter: قديش دفعت؟ opens a neutral request for an amount, while strongly stressed دفعت قديش؟! commonly repeats or challenges a figure. See Wh-in-Situ and Wh-Fronting.

Dialogue: checking a delivery charge

Common Mistakes

Pronouncing the written ق as formal q

Adding English do-support

Stranding the price preposition

Using formal كم in an otherwise casual exchange

Using one duration frame for every timeline

Key Takeaways

Use قديش for a price, an amount, a count, a degree, or a duration; the following phrase supplies the scale. Use بقديش for the price at which something was bought or sold. Initial position is reliable for a neutral question, while clause-internal or final قديش is also natural and often becomes echoic under strong stress. For time, choose the whole frame: قديش بدها وقت؟, صارلك قديش...؟, or من قديش...؟.