msa-ca

69 | From MSA to CA: A Beginner’s guide for transitioning into Colloquial Arabic Chapter 4 Contents: A: Transitioning to CA: Negation in MSA vs CA 1. Mini dialogues B: Accepting and rejecting invitations: 1. Accepting an invitation to lunch 2. Politely rejecting an invitation to an outing 3. Practice: Complete the dialogue C: Cultural insights: Tips on dealing with culturally sensitive situations A: Transitioning to CA: Negation in MSA vs CA During your studies of MSA, you have probably noticed that the present tense is negated using لا , past tense using ما , and non-verbal sentences using ليس . There are more tools of negation like النافية ِ لا ِ،ِ الناهية ِ لا ِ، لن ِ، لم . The good news is that in CA, the negation is much simpler with fewer tools to use. One of the equivalents of ليس in the Egyptian dialect is مش . In the Levant, it is ما , and in the Gulf, مو . You can add مش before non-verbs to negate, regardless of the gender.