It's your third morning in Ramallah and you wake up wrong. Head pounding, throat like sandpaper. There's a clinic, a 3iyaade, two streets down, and you'd rather not mime your way through the whole appointment.
So here's the small kit. Say you're sick, point at what hurts, mention the fever, ask for something to take. That gets you through most of a visit.
At the door
The everyday word for a doctor is , borrowed and worn smooth. The more Arabic one is Tabeeb, and it's what you'll see on the sign. A hospital, if it comes to that, is a mustashfa. Say "the doctor" and the T of Tabeeb eats the l of il-, so it lands as iT-Tabeeb, never il-Tabeeb. That's sun letters at work.
To say you're sick you don't need a verb at all. A man says ana mareeD, a woman says ana mareeDa, and the sentence is done. There's no word for "is" to slot in. If you just feel off, mish mnee7 covers "not well."
Where it hurts: waja3 plus a body part
The word doing all the work is waja3, "pain." Put a body part right behind it and you've named the ache. waja3 raas is literally "pain head," and that's a headache, plain as that. No "my," no preposition.
| Body part | On its own | The ache |
|---|---|---|
| head | raas | waja3 raas |
| tooth | sinn | waja3 sinn |
| eye | 3een | waja3 3een |
| hand/arm | 'eed | waja3 'eed |
To make it yours, lead with 3indi ("I have"): 3indi waja3 raas, "I've got a headache." Or pin the exact spot with fi ("in") and a possessive ending: waja3 fi 3eeni, "a pain in my eye."
The doctor's first question is usually ween il-waja3?, "where's the pain?" Point and answer.
The fever, and the 3ind trick
Palestinian has no verb "to have." It leans on 3ind instead, roughly "at me," with a pronoun hooked onto the end, so 3indi means "I have." A fever is 7araara, which is also just the plain word for heat, and that's exactly how you say it:
- 3indi 7araara — I have a fever
- 3indi bard — I have a cold
- 3indo 7araara — he has a fever
bard is the same word you'd use for cold weather. To say you don't have a fever, wrap the 3ind in ma...sh: ma 3indeesh 7araara.
Since when?
The doctor will want to know how long it's been going on. You stitch that together with min ("since"):
- min embaare7 — since yesterday
- min yowmein — for two days
- min talat ayyaam — for three days
Asking for medicine
Medicine is dawa. To ask for it, reach for biddi, the all-purpose "I want":
- biddi dawa — I want some medicine
- 3indak ishi la-l-waja3? — do you have something for the pain?
- laazem aakhud dawa? — should I take medicine?
A pill is a 7abbe, and more than one is 7abbaat. You might get told to take one 7abbe twice a day, and that's your cue to nod and head for the pharmacy.
The get-well line
When you tell someone you've been sick, the reflex reply is salamtak to a man, salamtek to a woman. It means "get well," literally "your well-being." You answer alla yisallmak, or just shukran and a tired smile.
