"اَلْإيجار جَيِّد اَلْحَمْدُ لِله."
Translation:The rent is good, praise be to God.
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The religious meaning of alhamdulillah is all praise and all thanks is for Allah alone. Praise and thanks being two different things. You can thank someone for a favour done to you but not praise them, you can praise the good attributes of someone or something but not thank them. However alhamdulillah is a combination of both these things because ultimately, all praise and all thanks is for Allah alone. We praise the Creator not the creation. All thanks is due to Allah because everything happens by His will. That is why we also say alhamdulillah when something 'bad' happens to us because it happened by Allah's will and we do not know His plan for us. It could be that He has done us a massive favour without us realising it yet. So say alhamdulillah often!
I agree with you completely. I've read all the comments. And it seems that this sentence has created a big caos here. Muslims like me use "alhamdulillah" to praise the one and only "Allah". So "Allah" should be an option here. We all are using Duolingo to learn Arabi. But this course isn't that good. I still haven't learnt to say how are you, I'm fine, what's your name, my name is..... etc. And these sentences might be offensive sometimes for Muslims. So this sentence should be removed.
Owh yikes! All my saudi & north african friends get really welcoming and pleasantly excited with me using 'alhamdulillah', 'inshallah', 'mashallah, and 'wallahi'; and they all say that allah is just a generic word (equivalent to God in english)... Tbh only non-arab muslims get worked up about it (so far in my experience)... This is confusing indeed (but i also make it a point to only use those phrases with people i am VERY familiar with)
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Is "Praise be to God" an expression used in the daily life, such as in the above sentence ?
"Thank God" should also be accepted because it's an equivalent expression (not a literal translation), but without an "s" at the end of "thank". The English expression is "thank God", where "thank" is in the imperative mood. You're telling people to thank God, you're not talking to God directly and saying "thanks!" (3rd person singular).
Please report "The rent is good, thank God." as a correct answer using the "Report" button next time :-)
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I do not believe that "thank god" is in the imperative mood. It's a set phrase to express gladness, or relief , no sense of telling anyone to offer thanks.
I think you're right--a lot of traditional expressions get shortened to a couple key words or a single word of its own--sometimes to the extent that the "full" version sounds awkwardly old-fashioned.
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Be [it the] cause = because
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Al[though] it [may] be = albeit
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N[ot] ever = never
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[You act] as if [that were the case!] = As if!
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[I] thank you / Thanks [be to you] = Thank you!/Thanks!
So, similar to the last one, "I thank God" drops the "I" and becomes "thank God."
1008
Dear poptropica5, thank you! I'm just beginning to use the Arabic keyboard - with a printout of it stuck to my wall in front of me, so that I learn to touch-type. And it felt magic when "لله" appeared just as you said. But what's that grave harakat above the little double-u that doubles the second L? And I have another problem: I'm using the Word keyboard, on my computer, and it doesn't seem to have the letter dhaa! Do you have that difficulty? Is it a fault of Word, I wonder, or is dhaa hiding somewhere? I'd greatly appreciate your help.
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Oh my dear friend Hariann! Thank you thank you! What a difference to my life. It was quite a fly in the ointment, not to have that letter. xx
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That's "god" with a miniscule G. The Abrahamaic God is called "الله" in Arabic. But yeah, "praise be to Allah" should be a valid option as well.
My understanding is that A: you probably should avoid bringing up being atheist or agnostic in most countries where Arabic is the official state language, but B: it's more like "god bless you" when someone sneezes, or a muttered "oh thank god!" to express relief or "oh my god!" to express shock--a particularly adamant atheist might try to find ways to avoid it, but most people would just say it out of habit without really intending any religious aspect.
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But since atheists say things like "thank god" without thereby declaring their belief in any god, why shouldn't they say the equivalent in Arabic?
1008
That is true, certainly for a sneeze. But if they want to say it fervently, like instead of, or in addition to, a heartfelt "thank you", they might say the full "god bless you".
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Really? I took it as what the landlord might say straight after counting what they received, as acknowledgement that it was the correct amount.
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Meh... if somebody said "the rent is good" in English, what you said is the first thing that would spring to my mind, but with the Arabic, "it is a reasonable amount of money" is more probable. الإيجار كامل "Rent is complete" is how I would express the former idea, or something to that effect anyway.
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"Fortunately" should be an acceptable translation, if not the primary one, for "Al7amdu lillaah," given that it doesn't carry the religious connotation "praise be to God" carries in English.
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Could somebody please explain how works? I understand that the first part اَلْحَمْدُ means "praise", and we've learned that إلى means "to", and الله means Allah, but what are the letters in لِله ? Could someone please deconstruct it for me? I can't work out what letters it's made of. Thank you.
The first two letters of الله are the same الـ you see in "the". The original word for a (polytheistic) god was إلٰه 'ilahu; 'allah was a contraction of الإلٰهal-'ilahu, meaning "The God"--i.e., emphasizing this was The One And Only God, not some lesser polytheistic deity; the triconsonantal root of الإلٰه was ء-ل-ه, though the hamza was a weak sound that eventually got left out between the laams.
When al الـ is prefixed by li لِـ, ("to"; "for"; belonging to"), you write two laams in a row (للـ) instead of laam-alif-laam (لال*).
So, "to God" is li (لِ) + [a]llah (لّٰه) =lillah (لِله).
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اَلْحَمْدُ لِ انت I hope you might correct my attempt at saying "praise be to you", AnUnicorn. Actually the omission of harakat is quite handy, isn't it, if you don't know if you're talking to a masculine or a feminine being! I hugely appreciate your detailed explanation. One other thing: could you tell me if this "to" (لِ) is anything to do with the "to" Duolingo has taught us so far, (إلى)? Or is the latter just to indicate physical direction, while your shorter version denotes an indirect object, like the dative case?
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What you were trying to say was الحمد لك. In dialect, لـ is used for both إلى and لـ, but in MSA, لـ generally translates to "for" and إلى to "to." So literally, "praise is for God." And you're right that an indirect object can often be found after لـ as well.
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For some reason I've only come across your post a month after you wrote it, tsuj1g1r1. Many thanks for correcting my clumsy attempt at الحمد لك. But I can't quite decompose لك. I see that the final ك indicates "you", and the first ل indicates for/to. But what is the second ل doing? Looking forward to your response.
1619
Huh! You know, I never noticed this before in my life, but li- does indeed get an irregular vowel change before pronouns, and I can't think of any other preposition that does (Although the -aa at the end of على and إلى become -y before pronouns, as their spelling indicates). It's li- before nouns, but la- before pronouns. So "laka" for the masculine you, and "laki" for the feminine you. In Standard Arabic, short vowels aren't pronounced in pausa (before silence), so they both become "lak," but in the more common dialect-influenced pronunciation that everybody is disapproving of in the comments here, you'd say "lak" to a man and "lakii" to a woman, with a long vowel, and this will keep them separate.
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No, I meant the second L in لك of الحمد لك. But I see now that there aren't two L's. I stupidly took the upright of ك for an ل. Or else my vision was blurred. Even so, I have a problem. I understand that لك means "to/for/ you". And Google Translate pronounces it as "lak". But how is it broken down? It's the preposition "li" followed by K? So presumably it gets differentiated for gender? Lak and Lik? Or do the a/i follow the K? How does it work?
1619
Which second ل? If you mean لله, adding لـ to the beginning of the word removes the alif in the definite article, so لالله becomes لله.
Arab society is much more religious than Western society, so even those who consider themselves ‘secular’ in Arab society are still very traditional in the religious meaning of the word. That is why the use of expressions that include the name of Allah is so common. No Muslim would care if you say the name of Allah without any affinity
1008
Hahaha. Because "the God" implies there are more than one. It turns "God" into a common noun, a countable one. If you can use the definite article, it means you can use the indefinite one too. Whereas, article-less, "God" is a name, and therefore refers to one single entity.
Edit 8 months later: actually, that's wrong. We say "the sun", "the truth" without meaning that there are more than one of them. Even so, we wouldn't say "the God" in this context. Maybe simply because "God" is thought of as a proper noun, not a common noun. You'd only use the definite article if you didn't believe, eg talking about another culture than your own. What do other people think?
1008
Sometimes, when people say that, and write out their answer for us to see, someone notices a tiny typo...
I've traveled in many Arabic countries, had such enjoyable times, met so many wonderful people, had a better time because I tried to speak Arabic and understand the cultures. I find some of the remarks here racist. If you treat people with respect and warmth, most people will treat you with respect and warmth.
I think you have a point, and i think it is a very delicate subject, for this reason on a beginners course duo should avoid these phrases. You cannot get away from the different way people react to these phrase. I think that people are just pointing out that it is very normal in arabic, but also that it sounds very strange in English. The second course should have a full explanation that these phrases have different cultural meanings before they are taught. Also its a very complicated phrase... and ive not even learnt how to say no or yes or 1,2,3, ... or how are you, im fine, would you like a cup of tea? Yes please.....
I don't know why people make this such a big deal I mean.... For everyone who want to have a answer this is based by all I learned. There is a one and only God who creates everything "Allah was not born and has not given birth to anyone Allah always exists and Allah is not she or he Allah does not have gender " Allah send thousands of messengers to lead humans to best he named Allah and Muslims worship "Allah". first of messengers was Adam and last one was Mohammed .The subject wasn't that you can call Jesus Allah or not. Muslims seid Jesus was one of the Allah's messengers to lead humans he is son of Mary who does not have father he bored by power of Allah because every messenger of Allah has his special miracle so people knows he comes from Allah. borned by Mother and speaking in mother's embrace is Jesus's first miracles Arab people are Muslim too and they call Jesus "Masih/مسیح" so if you wanna call Jesus you say Masih not Allah and Alhamd/hamd is a word just use for Allah because I said Jesus is one of ALLAH'S messengers right you can't say Alhamd Mohammad Alhamd David Alhamd Adam Alhamd Ebrahim ect because they are Allah's messenger and they have their existence by Allah so you can't say Alhamd Masih/Jesus too. If you want to know why it's because Allah in this sentence is something beyond human Jesus is human so you can't worship him with the word Alhamd/hamd it's just for worshipping Allah who has a existence beyond everything I know I talked a lot I'm sorry but hope no one get sad or mad because of their beliefs like what happened to other people who commented here Allah is Allah Jesus is Jesus just different stories Christian people can say الایجار جید شکراً للمسیح rent is good thanks to masih I'm not sure about it so any Arab people if you read this please put a quick answer hope I didn't made this more complicated <3
@KatieC993112 As an answer to your comment: "Then how come Christians say, "God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost"?" I had to look it up as I never heard it before. Shortly said is that God is three parts: the Creator, the Word and the Judge Read more at this link: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-God-the-Father-God-the-Son-God-the-Holy-Ghost