How do different Arabic dialects say “very”?

كلمات وتعابير من لهجات عربية مختلفة

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B1 Arabic listening practice · Arabic · Picked for people who know some

💡 Did you know?
بزاف / قوي / مرة (bezzaf / awi / marra)
Arabic dialect intensifiers, "very"
Three different ways to say 'very' that mark a speaker’s home region in seconds

Arabic dialects each pick their own all-purpose intensifier for very, and the choice tells you almost instantly which region a speaker is from. Maghrebi Arabic uses بزاف (bezzaf). Egyptian Arabic uses قوي (awi), sometimes خالص (khaliṣ). Levantine Arabic uses كتير (ktīr). Khaleeji Arabic uses مرة (marra) or وايد (wāyid). Yemeni Arabic uses شديد (shadīd). Modern Standard Arabic uses جداً (jiddan), the textbook word most learners meet first but few people actually say casually. Arabic-dialect comedy reels love stacking these together to riff on regional differences.

In this clip, a creator runs through bezzaf, qawi, marra and other dialect equivalents back-to-back.

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this B1 Arabic listening practice video?

61.5%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Arabic words
Most of the words in this video are common Arabic words.

How common in Arabic

61.5%
Top 1,000
61.5%
Top 2,000
84.6%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Arabic

82.4%
Top 1,000
88.2%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than B1. Here is what they mean.

بشويش
2×
Not in top 5,000
تكفى
2×
Not in top 5,000
سولف
2×
Not in top 5,000
عيت
2×
Not in top 5,000
ارغي
1×
Not in top 5,000

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

★Where you hear this

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