Learn Hardcore Arabic (Levantine): قبل ما نطلع عالسوق، امي كتبت لستة صغيرة عالتلفون. - Before we went to the market, my mother wrote a small list on the phone.

Word

قبل ما نطلع عالسوق، امي كتبت لستة صغيرة عالتلفون.

Meaning

Before we went to the market, my mother wrote a small list on the phone.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of قبل ما نطلع عالسوق، امي كتبت لستة صغيرة عالتلفون.

Why is there ما after قبل in قبل ما نطلع?

In Levantine, قبل ما + verb is a very common way to say before someone does something.

So قبل ما نطلع is the normal colloquial pattern for before we head out / before we go out.

Here, ما is not negation. It does not mean not. It is just part of the structure that introduces the following verb clause.

A good way to learn it is as one chunk:

قبل ما = before

Why is نطلع in the present form if the action is still in the future?

Because the Levantine imperfect verb form often covers both present and future, depending on context.

After قبل ما, Arabic works a lot like English:

English also uses a present-form verb there, even though the action is still future from the speaker’s point of view.

So نطلع here does not mean we are going out right now. It means when we go out / before we go out.

What does نطلع mean exactly here? Could I say نروح instead?

Yes, you could say نروح in many contexts, but there is a nuance.

from can mean: