Questions & Answers about امي عندها وجع راس اليوم.
That’s a very common question.
In Levantine Arabic, عند plus a pronoun is often used to express possession, especially for things like illnesses, objects, and abstract things.
- عندي = I have
- عندك = you have
- عنده = he has
- عندها = she has
So أمي عندها وجع راس literally feels something like My mother, at her, [there is] head pain, but in natural English it means My mother has a headache.
This is one of the main ways Levantine says to have, because Arabic does not use a general everyday verb exactly like English have in this kind of sentence.
Yes, in a way.
Arabic often makes present-tense sentences without an explicit verb to be. This is normal. So a sentence can simply be:
- أمي عندها وجع راس اليوم
There is no separate present-tense word for is here.
Also, as mentioned above, has is being expressed through عندها, not through a separate verb.
So for an English speaker, the sentence may look incomplete at first, but in Arabic it is perfectly normal and complete.