8 Comments
No.
It also means "anymore" in "אני כבר לא משחק כדורגל" - I don't play football anymore. But it's not slang.
But what about when people say: 'אני כבר בא' - I feel like this doesn't directly translate to 'I am already coming'? Surely there's another meaning here?
It just adds a hint of urgency or immediacy, it's not something you can really translate into English. Sometimes you get something similar among New Yorkers, probably due to influence from Yiddish spoken by Jewish immigrants (I suspect this is also the reason for why it exists in Hebrew), when they say "Stop it already". (In Hebrew תפסיק כבר or די כבר).
I suppose there is a Yiddish איך קום שוין behind it. This is like German Ich komme schon or Hör schon auf (= תַּפְסִיק כְבָר)
For French speakers כבר has exactly the same meaning of "déjà" in all contexts
"Déjà pas" paraîtrait une alternative valable à "ne ... plus"; pour autant, "ne ... plus" serait la traduction usuel pour "כבר לא" tout en reconaissant la viabilité largement essentielle de "déjà pas" comme une traduction pour "כבר לא".
