Questions & Answers about اليوم عندي بريد من البنك.
How do I pronounce اليوم عندي بريد من البنك?
A careful fully-vowelled reading is:
الْيَوْمَ عِنْدِي بَرِيدٌ مِنَ الْبَنْكِ
A rough transliteration is:
al-yawma ʿindī barīdun mina l-banki
In normal pausing speech, the case endings are often not pronounced, so it may sound more like:
al-yawm ʿindī barīd min al-bank
Two pronunciation notes:
- ع in عندي is a deep throat sound with no exact English equivalent.
- بريد has a long ī sound: ba-REED.
Why is there no verb meaning have in this sentence?
In Arabic, possession is often expressed without a verb like English have.
So instead of saying something like I have mail, Arabic says something closer to:
At me there is mail
That is exactly what عندي بريد means:
- عندي = with me / at me
- بريد = mail
This is a very common Arabic pattern.
What exactly does عندي mean, and how is it built?
عندي is made of two parts:
- عند = at, with, in the possession of
- ي = my / me
So literally means or , and in natural English it often means .