حكى ḥaka: speak and tell

حكى ḥaka is the everyday Lebanese verb for “speak,” “talk,” “tell,” and sometimes “relate a story.” (informal/neutral spoken) The English translation depends largely on its complement: حكى مع marks a conversation partner, حكى عن marks a topic, a language can follow directly, and a recipient is commonly expressed with لـ.

This verb is final-weak. Its useful principal parts are حكى ḥaka, حكيت ḥkēt, بيحكي byiḥke, and احكي iḥke!. The shifting final edge is real morphology, not optional spelling variation.

Perfect paradigm

The unsuffixed masculine form ends in -a. First and second persons use a long ē stem, the feminine has حكت ḥakat, and the 3rd-person plural has the special Beirut production form حكيوا ḥikyo.

The perfect has speaker-level vowel variation even inside Beirut. Alongside this page’s حكى / حكت ḥaka / ḥakat baseline, many Lebanese speakers use a raised-vowel singular حكي / حكيت ḥike / ḥikyet. The plural حكيوا ḥikyo belongs naturally with that raised-vowel pattern, while contracted حكوا ḥko is also widespread across the Levant, including among Lebanese speakers (regional/speaker variation). Learn the baseline here for production, but recognize these forms as coherent speaker varieties rather than randomly mixing cells.

B-imperfect and bare imperfect

The imperfect uses a stem ending in -e. In this baseline, بتحكي is segmentally the same for a masculine addressee, a feminine addressee, and “she”; the pronoun or context resolves the person. Plural -o replaces the singular final vowel.

With a language name, حكى is direct: بيحكي عربي “he speaks Arabic.” A topic commonly uses عن or, in suitable contexts, بـ: حكينا عن السفر “we talked about travel”; حكينا بالموضوع “we discussed the matter.” A partner takes مع. These prepositions express different roles and are not interchangeable decorations.

Imperative and active participle

The singular command is احكي iḥke for both masculine and feminine addressees in the core Beirut pattern; the plural is احكوا iḥko. With a recipient clitic, final e lengthens: احكيلي iḥkīle “tell me.”

The active participle is حاكي ḥāke, feminine حاكية ḥākye, plural حاكيين ḥākyīn. It can present prior contact as relevant now, as in “I’ve already spoken to him.” This result-oriented use is more restricted than the finite verb; do not use it as a general substitute for “is speaking,” which normally takes عم + b-imperfect.

This construction reports settled contact that remains relevant, not speech unfolding now.

Tell content and report speech

A story or account can be a direct object: حكى القصة “he told the story.” A recipient is introduced with لـ, often fused to a pronoun: حكالي “he told me,” حكيتلها “I told her,” حكيولكن “they told you all.” A following إنو clause gives the reported content.

In the second example, the feminine clitic ـها in حكاها points back to القصة, while كلها adds “all of it.” Final-weak hosts change shape before clitics: حكى → حكاها, بيحكي → بيحكيلها, احكي → احكيلي. See weak verbs with clitics.

Direct quotation is also natural after حكى, especially when foregrounding an act of narrating or speaking, though قال is the more general quotative verb. Compare “talk/tell” here with قال as ‘say’.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Memorize the final-weak set حكى / حكيت / بيحكي / احكي / حكيوا.
• Use مع for a conversation partner, عن for a topic, and لـ for a recipient of information.
• A language or story can follow directly, while reported content commonly begins with إنو.
• Clitics expose special weak edges such as حكاها, حكيتلها, and احكيلي.