"اَلْتِّلْفاز مُعَطَّل وَهٰذِهِ مُشْكِلة كَبيرة."
Translation:The television is out of order and this is a big problem.
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why not "and this problem is big"...? I'm confused where the implied 'is' goes.
1781
An adjective can be used attributive (the big problem) and predicative (the problem is big). In Arabic, attributive use needs a match in definite article while predicative use has a mismatch in the definite article:
A big problem: مشكلة كبيرة and the big problem المشكلة الكبيرة vs. the problem is big المشكلة كبيرة.
Hope this helps understanding it a bit better.
- 1011
Why do people say "the definite article", when there's only one article in Arabic? Shouldn't it be "the article"? Or is "un" at the end of words also called an article - the indefinite one?
What is the difference between مَكْسور and مُعَطَّل? Would مَكسور work here?
We don't use "out of order" for something personal in a house- more for a commercial setting like a laundromat. This doesn't sound right in English.
Even a tv in a display case in a store is broken, not out of order. Something that multiple people use in a public setting and control is out of order, like a bathroom or a coffee maker, but we don't have the same level of control of the display tv. And it has to be something that provides a service (coffee, which you pay for, or a toilet, which is rather critical...). A tv in a store or eatery is usually set to a particular channel, it's not providing anything beyond a sample of cpability, and it's not a critial facility. Even a tv in a hotel is only used by a small number of people any given week, so athough it's a commercial establishment, it's still broken, not out of order. Wouldn't they avoid renting that room if part of it didn't work? I can't imagine being told that the tv in the only available room is out of order. They might say it is broken, and is that ok.
It might just be something specific to some parts of the world. Perhaps they use "out of order" differently in other parts of the world.
In the US we would not use the term out of order.
We would say its not working or its broken.
It seems weird to say a television is out of order. The public restroom is out of order, this coffee machine at 7-11 is out of order. The sample television in the display case is broken. My tv is broken. I suppose it's just how I'm used to it in my corner of the world.
