"You're welcome, Maha."
Translation:عَفْواً يا مَها.
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1541
Actually here were two good answers, though both meaning different things. عَفْواً يا مَها. You are welcome. In the sense of 'my pleasure' أهلا يا مَها You are welcome, Maha. in the sense of 'Please do come in / Nice to see you'
In Lebanon, we also use عَفْواً to say "excuse me" if someone is in the way for example and you're trying to get through the crowd.
Actually in the 2nd case (please do come in/ nice to see you) we just say"Welcome!" not "You are welcome". "You are welcome." is only only used for saying my pleasure
- 1741
The way I was taught, the nunation diacritic goes on the letter before the final alif, not on the alif itself. So عفوًا.
And for those wondering, in Arabic, the final -un and -in, which express the nominative and genitive cases, respectively, are only written as diacritics, but -an, the accusative marker, actually changes the spelling of the word by adding a final alif. That is because, at the end of an utterance, you wouldn't pronounce the -un or -in at all, but would replace the -an with a long -aa sound. At least in Standard Arabic. The set expressions like shukran and 3afwan are always pronounced with a final -an in the vernaculars, even at the end of an utterance. Nobody would ever say "shukraa" in day-to-day speech.
There are some regional variations regarding this sentence. For example in Lebanon, we usually restrict the use of the word عفوا to excuse, and commonly say أهلا to respond to thanks (in addition to welcoming).
- 1741
"You're welcome" is the answer to "thank you" in English, that is what 3afwan means here.
- 1381
There is a Palestinian woman who teaches Arabic on YouTube whose name is Maha (Learn Arabic With Maha). She pronounces her name "mah-hah using the European "a" sound "ah" rather than the English "a" sound like the "a" in "hat" that Duolingo is using. Are both pronunciations used or is Duolingo's TTS pronunciation incorrect again? I'm assuming Maha knows how to pronounce her own name correctly. ; )
She is using Palestinian pronunciation while Duolingo is using a "recieved Arabic" sort of like someone speaking on the BBC rather than London's East End.
- 1741
There is no such thing as 'received Arabic,' Standard Arabic has no accent of its own, and everybody pronounces it with their own native accent. But Richard is right that you're most likely just confused about the different accents that Arabs speak with. Some Californians and Canadians would use a European "ah" in the place of an English "a." People from the Levant have a more European A sound than people from Egypt. But both sounds are distinct from the sound in the word "father," which is the one in the word طار.
I guess Maha would be apeeking in her accent (or dialect, I'm not sure) like the fact you have English but British English would be way different to Australian English or it could be like how Algeria uses Arabic mixed with a bit of French. Hope this helps!
I am comfused with this word (afwan as welcom) becouse we usually use The word (ahlan) for that.
- 553
I am not a native in Arabic so I'm just asking, Doesn't عفواً mean "forgive me"? What exactly should we say in Arabic, when we want to say "you're welcome"?
- 1381
The word "عفواً" can mean "you're welcome, I beg your pardon", and "excuse me". This has been answered a number of times already. If your app allows you, you should read all the comments.
