Insults

أي كلام “ay kalam“ Please note that TeamMaha is committed to bringing you insults on the regular because they never teach you how to say something or someone is absolute shit in school, DO THEY? Anyways: this phrase has nothing to do with speech, and everything to do with quality. For example: شغل اي كلام (sho3’l ay kalam) means ‘a crappy job’ (as in someone did a crappy job of something), بيقول اي كلام means something to the effect of ‘he’s just saying whatever’ and رحلة اي كلام means ‘a lousy/low-quality trip’ (literally ‘an any speech trip’ which just makes no goddamn sense at all). ...

مش هاعرفك تاني “mesh ha3refak/ek tany“ Sticking to our current theme of insulting other people: when another person makes your blood boil so much that you don’t want anything to do with them ever again and have no qualms about burning a bridge, you can whip out this phrase which basically means, “I will never speak to you again.” The word ‘know’ in Arabic is used in ways that sound curious to English speakers; more on that here. ...

شايف نفسه “shayf nefso“ Far removed from the Harry Potter definition of ‘seer,’ this phrase means that someone is stuck-up or thinks they’re some kind of hot-shot (‘hwa shayf nefso awi‘ – ‘he’s really stuck-up’ is the most common way to use it in my experience). Another similar phrase would be عايش الدور (aysh ed-dor), lit.: ‘living the role.’ It also means that someone is somewhat arrogant or takes themselves way too seriously. ...