Introduction

This page presents three different uses of ايش حال. These are not the only uses of ايش حال but the most common that appear in television and movies. These meanings are related, although, in English they may not be translated with the same phrase. Uses 1 and 2 are very similar but Use 3 is a bit different. In every case discussed on this page, ايش حال could be replaced with the much more common أُمال without losing the intended meaning.

For the first use, ايش حال is used to indirectly express the speakers' condemnation of a situation or statement. In English, the way to do this that best corresponds with ايش حال is to say "I would hate to know what would have happened if...." Using ايش حال in this way also expresses an element of shock, as if the speaker was not expecting this response. Notice that in all of the examples for this section, the sentence following ايش حال is a negation of what has actually occured or is actually occuring.

It is possible to use ايش حال to express positive things, so instead of "I would hate to know" it might be translated as "I would love to know". For example, if a student received a C on a test and a parent bought him a car, you might say "I would love to know would have happened if he hadn't got a C on the test. (as in got a better grade)" Unfortunately, all the examples in the movie corpus CALM are negative. So although it is possible, it will not be demonstrated here.

ايش حال is not only used to express shock and condemnation. In Examples 4-5, it is used when trying to convince the listener that their situation is worse than a previous situation which ended poorly. Therefore, the listener's situation will be met with an even worse response. For example, let's say your friend wants to start shopping at a local بقال (small grocery shop); however, you are afraid to go there. You heard from another friend Sara, who speaks Arabic way better than you, that the shop owner was totally rude to her because her Arabic was not perfect. In order to convince your friend not to go to that particular بقال you might say something like "The shop owner treated Sara so rudely because of her Arabic and she speaks great. I would hate to know how he would treat us (since our Arabic is worse than hers)!" Once again, the whole phrase "I would hate to know what happens" is captured in Egyptian Arabic with ايش حال. You will notice that all of the examples in this section, like those above, are negative in nature. But it can be used positvely as well. For example, if a situation turned out well for someone worse off than the listener, then ايش حال could be used to convince the listener to do something because it turned out well for the others.

Both Examples 4 and 5 come from the same TV show and need a little back story to fully understand what is going on. FatHi, the son of a wealthy business man, has fallen in love with one of the servants, Warda. Some of Warda's family members are also servants of the wealthy businessman. Additionally, the daughter of the wealthy businessman has recently married an officer who is not wealthy and not at the same social level as the businessman. This of course caused the father to disapprove of the marriage and initially treat his daughter as if he had disowned her.

A second use of ايش حال is similar to the first use in that it expresses shock but it is not used to express judgment or to convince one of anything. It expresses a similar idea to the non-literal sense of the English phrase "what are you talking about?!" For example, if you went to McDonalds and ordered a hambuger and the employee told you that they were all out of hamburgers, you might say "You are all out of hamburgers?! What are you talking about, you are McDonalds!" This sentence can be expressed in Egyptian Arabic using the phrase ايش حال.

The formula for using ايش حال to express this meaning is to 1) repeat back sentence that you found shocking and add an ايه at the end 2) say ايش حال and then 3) use the ما of emphasis, either positively or negatively with the rest of the sentence. This ما is usually placed before a pronoun.