"هٰذِهِ الْموزة غالْية."
Translation:This banana is expensive.
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I am not getting the difference between "this is an expensive banana" and "this banana is expensive" in this type of sentence. Can someone enlighten me?
It's indeed very tricky. The word هٰذِهِ = this (fem.) is a demonstrative. If it is followed by a definite noun (like الْموزة = the banana), it is considered as a determiner. Therefore هٰذِهِ الْموزة which is literally "this the banana" means "this banana". If هٰذِهِ is not followed by a definite noun, it is considered as a pronoun. For instance هٰذِهِ موزة which is literally "this a banana" means "this is a banana". In other words:
- هٰذِهِ الْموزة غالْية = "This banana is expensive"
- هٰذِهِ موزة غالْية = "This is an expensive banana"
هذا موزة غالية
This is an expensive banana.
هذا الموزة غالية
This banana is expensive.
As you see in the difference between the two arab sentences, there's an "al" ال infront of "muuzah" for the second sentence in which in english sentence made the word "banana" located BEFORE the "is". So if you want to relocate the adjective to the back of the object, just add "al"
هذا الموزة الغالية ... This expensive banana...
Why does الموزة sound like al muuza, but موزة sounds like myuuza? Is the audio just incorrect?
Why does the recording say ghaaliiatan when separate and ghaaliia when in the sentence?
this because of the تنوين... but there is no difference in the meaning at all
See AmineHadjii1 for the correct grammatical answer, it appears to me that if you have an 'al' in front of the word that is a noun (person/place/thing) it puts the emphasis on that noun in the sentence. E.g. this 'al + noun' is expensive (adjective), whereas the alternative is ... This is an expensive (adjective) noun (without al). Without the 'al' infront of the noun the adjective describing the word comes before the noun.
Only read if you want more grammatical details
According to Arabic grammar, in the sentence هٰذِهِ موزة غالْية = "This is an expensive banana", the word هٰذِهِ = this is the subject and the noun phrase موزة غالْية = "an expensive banana" is the predicate (or attribute). In English, the subject and the attribute have to be linked by a state verb, like to be. In Arabic, they don't have to be linked by a state verb.
Now, if you look at the sentence هٰذِهِ الْموزة غالْية = "This banana is expensive", the word هٰذِهِ = this is still the subject and the adjective غالْية = expensive is the predicate. Thus, the sentence means more or less "This is expensive". The word الْموزة = the banana is what we call in Arabic بَدَل (it's called Appositive in English). An appositive is a grammatical element placed after another one to identify it in another way, for instance, in the sentence "My sister, Alice, is a doctor", the word Alice is the appositive of my sister; they are the same person and I just want to refer to them differently in the same sentence. If we go back to the Arabic sentence and keep the definition of apposition in mind, we'll see that according to Arabic grammar, a sentence like هٰذِهِ الْموزة غالْية literally means "This - the banana - is expensive". Granted, this is a possible construction in English, but not the most natural, so we would translate it as "This banana is expensive"
To AmineHadji1 Very well explained! Interesting aspects for me as a German teacher (with the subjects German and English). It's interesting how different grammar "works"in the different languages. That's why literally translation from Arabic to English sometimes is difficult. ( And would be even more difficult from Arabic to German.)
Have you ever been to Arab countries? Because of the import/export tax laws, bananas can be very expensive