How do you say “I’m sick” in Egyptian Arabic?

When Egyptians feel ill they say أنا عيّان (ana ʕayyān), or عيّانة (ʕayyāna) for a woman. عيّان is a very everyday colloquial word for “sick”; مريض (marīḍ) is also normal and widely understood. For the past, add كنت: كنت عيّان, “I was sick.”

This vlog opens with exactly that line, explaining a break from making videos, then goes through three common complaints: صداع (headache), مغص (stomach cramps: بطني بتكون وجعاني, “my stomach hurts”) and برد (a cold), with كحة (cough) and عطس (sneezing). It ends on a proverb, الوقاية خير من العلاج: “prevention is better than cure.”