ما فيه

ma fee

If you travel to an Arab country you will soon encounter this important little word.

• You go to a restaurant and ask for tabouleh تابولة and the answer might be ‘ma fee’.
• You want to buy a T-shirt and when you ask for your size, the answer is ‘ma fee‘.
• You travel 20 kilometres to an event and are told ‘ma fee‘.

You will soon realise that ma fee means or implies:

not available, we haven’t got it, you can’t have it, it isn’t going to happen.

Of course, your best response is to shrug your shoulders and say,

ما فيه مشكلة

‘ma fee mushkila’

It doesn’t matter.

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