What does “hassa” mean in Iraqi Arabic?
تصحيه حميد المتأخر على دواءه
A2 Arabic listening practice · Gulf Arabic · Picked for people who know a little
هسه (hassa) or هسة (hessa) is the Iraqi Arabic word for “now,” replacing Modern Standard Arabic الآن (al-ān) and Egyptian دلوقتي (dilwa’ti). Hassa is one of the strongest dialect markers in Iraqi Arabic. Pair it with the Iraqi negation مو (mū) (instead of MSA ليس) and the address particle لك (lak), often spoken at sentence-onset, and you have a tight cluster of Iraqi-distinctive features in a single phrase.
In this clip, a woman tries to wake her late-sleeping husband Hamid for his medicine: “يلا حميد قوم بالساعة هسه صارت” (“come on Hamid, get up, it’s past time now”). The trio of yalla, hassa, and lak signals Iraqi speech.
How common are the words?
How common are the words in this A2 Arabic listening practice video?
How common in Arabic
How common in spoken Arabic
Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Iraqi family dramas and TV serials
- ▸In Iraqi street interviews and YouTube vlogs
- ▸In Iraqi diaspora content from London, Detroit, and Sydney
- ▸In Iraqi rap and music videos (Narcy, I-NZ)
- ▸In Iraqi WhatsApp voice notes among family