Expert: Imad Ajam - 5/27/2006

Question
Hi,

I've just started learning Arabic. One of the phrases on my electronic course is 'Do you live in Cairo?'

When I write this phonetically in English I write it as follows;

'enti ayesha feh Carherra'. Sometimes the 'feh' sounds like 'fel' when different people say it. I presume this is the word for 'in'.

My question is; should this word be pronounced as 'feh' or 'fel'.

Shukren!

Answer
Dear Vincent,

In Arabic, (in) is "fe", and "el" or "al" is the definite article (the). So the proper pronunciation of the sentence would be:

enti ayesha fil caherra.

So (in the) "fi al", can sometimes be abbreviated as "Fil", just like (do not) in English, can be (don't).

Thanks for your question