What’s the difference between أمس and البارحة? Yesterday, another italki member asked what the difference is between أمس and البارحة, if there is any. After all, they both mean “yesterday”. This got m

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What’s the difference between أمس and البارحة?

Yesterday, another italki member asked what the difference is between أمس and البارحة, if there is any. After all, they both mean “yesterday”. This got me thinking…

The word البارحة comes from بَرَحَ, which means “he left/went away”. (If you’re familiar with كان وأخواتها, you might be familiar with this verb in its negative form ما برح, which means “he stayed/continued to be”.)

The active participle of برح is بارِح. So a person/thing that has left is called بارح.

So how did بارح become البارحة? I did some googling and found out that the term is short for الليلة البارحة, which literally means “the night that has gone”, i.e. last night.

Some dialects have extended the usage of this word to include the day that preceded said night, i.e. yesterday. (I’ve also been told that some dialects have retained its usage as “last night”.)

Now let’s go back to our question: What’s the difference between أمس and البارحة? Well, أمس means “yesterday” and can’t mean anything else. البارحة is idiomatically used to mean “yesterday”, but it can refer to any feminine thing/person that has gone.

10 apr 2020 06:04

Commenti · 7

Tomáš:

Arabic grammar is fun when you learn it the way it's meant to be learnt. :) It's a logical language, and you can often find the answer by thinking about it. Unfortunately, this kind of logical approach is a lost art, as teachers often rely on memorization. I intentionally provide the steps to find the answer, because it's very beneficial (and a lot of fun!). By learning how the language functions, students can learn to learn the language by themselves and have fun exploring it.

10 aprile 2020

ندى:

كلمة (بارحة) اسم فاعل من (برح)، ولذلك معناها غير محصور على اليوم الذي كان قبل يومنا هذا. فتستطيعين القول (برحت المرأة من مكانها، فهي بارحة) كما تقولين (ذهبت المرأة، فهي ذاهبة). (برح) فعل بمعنى (ذهب) أو (زال)، و(ما برح) من أحد أخوات كان مرادفة لـ(ظل) و(ما زال).

10 aprile 2020