سمّع sammaʿ — let hear; play

سمّع sammaʿ is the causative counterpart of سمع “hear”: it means “make or let someone hear,” and in everyday media contexts it commonly means “play something for someone.” The doubled middle consonant is essential. Ordinary unvocalized writing often shows both verbs as سمع, so pronunciation and participant roles identify which verb is intended.

This is a lexical Pattern II verb, not a license to translate every English play with سمّع. Use it when the relevant result is hearing: play someone a voice note, let someone hear a song, or make one's voice heard. A device “playing” by itself and a person playing an instrument select other verbs.

Complete Practical Paradigm

The commands are سمّع sammaʿ, سمّعي sammaʿi, and سمّعوا sammaʿu. Negative commands are ماتسمّعش، ماتسمّعيش، ماتسمّعوش. The active participle is مسمّع misammaʿ; a derived passive/result form متسمّع mitsammaʿ exists but is much less central than finite clauses and ordinary descriptions such as الصوت واضح “the sound is clear.”

The Two Roles: Hearer and Content

The basic frame has a causer, a hearer, and audible content. The hearer commonly appears immediately after the verb, often as an object suffix, while the content follows as a noun phrase:

The last sentence is not merely “listen to me.” It asks the other person to produce enough voice for the speaker to hear and assess it.

Playing Media for Someone

With songs, voice notes, clips, and recordings, English naturally uses play. Egyptian can use سمّع when attention is on giving another person access to the sound. شغّل instead focuses on starting or operating the device or file. The same event may allow either verb, but the viewpoint differs.

Here شغّل starts the file, while سمّع presents its sound to the listeners. This is a semantic contrast, not an absolute ban on either verb.

Clitic Packaging

One participant can be expressed as a suffix while the other remains a noun phrase. When the audible item is already known, colloquial Egyptian may package it with a recipient phrase: سمعهالي sammaʿhāli “he played it for me,” where ـها refers to a feminine item such as الأغنية and ـلي marks the recipient.

The negative ـش comes after the attached hearer: ما + تسمّع + هو + ش. For fuller two-object suffix patterns, see two-object clitics.

Bare, b-, and Future Forms

The bare imperfect follows expressions such as عايز and لازم. The b-imperfect describes a repeated or unfolding act of making something heard. Joined حـ marks a future presentation.

Recitation and Sound Projection

In educational settings, تسميع can refer to reciting learned material or being checked on it. The verb can therefore mean making a lesson audible from memory. An older or marked intransitive use meaning “resound/be loud” also exists, but neutral modern Cairo usually describes volume directly with عالي or uses صوته واصل.

Do not generalize that use to every kind of studying. It belongs to recitation and checking learned material.

Negation and a Short Dialogue

Finite forms use ما...ش: ماسمعتش، مابيسمعش. Future negation usually uses مش حـ. Because the same unvocalized letters can represent Form I, the shadda in the spoken form is especially important.

Register and Variation

The media and “let hear” uses here are mainstream Cairo (informal/neutral). Formal MSA has cognate سَمَّعَ / يُسَمِّعُ forms (formal/MSA), but ordinary Egyptian uses its own prefix vowels and no mood endings. Recitation uses are common in particular educational and religious-learning settings (educational/community-specific). The old intransitive “resound” use is marked or dated for many speakers; active production should prefer an explicit volume expression. Regional and social varieties may differ in the preferred media verb, especially alongside شغّل.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• سمّع is causative: its subject causes a hearer to receive audible content.
• The hearer commonly follows the verb or attaches as a suffix; the content remains another complement.
• Use سمّع to foreground letting someone hear media, while شغّل foregrounds starting the file or device.
• Preserve the doubled م in every spoken form and keep object clitics inside ما...ش.