The imperative in Egyptian Arabic

• Forming direct commands
• Expressing indirect/polite wishes
• Forming direct negative commands
• Expressing indirect negative commands

Forming direct commands

To form commands in Egyptian Arabic, step 1 is to start out with the imperfect form of the verb (المضارع). A few examples:

Step 2 is to get rid of the ي at the beginning:

Step 3 is to determine whether you can leave the verb like that or need to add an ا at the beginning.

• If the verb is like the verbs in the left-hand column (i.e. "HoTT," "ruuH"), and has a consonant followed by a vowel, you leave it alone. This is the correct command form.
• But if the verb is like those on the right, and has a consonant cluster at the beginning, you can't leave it that way and say "mši" or "ftaH." In Egyptian Arabic, consonant clusters like that aren't allowed at the start of words. So you have to add an ا at the beginning:

This is the formula for a command to a man. So, step 4: in order to formulate commands to a woman or to a group, you just add an -i or -u suffix, respectively.

Note: With defective verbs, where the base verb ends in a vowel (as with يمشي), you get rid of the ending vowel before adding -i or -u. Some more examples:

A table of some common commands:

So to sum up with a simplified rule: if the verb is any of the following, you don't need to add an ا to the beginning of the command.

• form 2 verbs

  يغيّر (yiġayyar)	to change (s.t.)
  يجرّب (yigarrib)	to try/test

• form 3 verbs

  يساعد (yisaa3id)	to help
  يحاول (yiHaawil)	to try/attempt

• geminate/doubled verbs

  يردّ (yirodd)	to reply
  يبصّ (yiboSS)	to look

• hollow verbs

  يروح (yiruuH)	to go
  يسيب (yisiib)	to leave

Note: With hamzated verbs that have a long alif right after the initial ي (like ياخد yaaxod and ياكل yaakol), you remove both the inital ي and the long alif in step 2. So the commands for these verbs are خد - خدي - خدوا (xod - xodi - xodu) and كل - كلي - كلوا (kol - koli - kolu).

And if the verb isn't in one of those categories, you do need to add an ا to the beginning of the command.

Note: There are a couple of irregular commands:

Expressing indirect/polite wishes

To express a more polite/indirect desire for someone to do something, there are different ways to go about it:

You can use modals with the appropriate second-person imperfect verb conjugation:

Words like لازم are more imperative. ممكن is better to use with people you don't know; in general, it's the best all-purpose polite way to phrase a request.

And of course it's always good to say "please"!

Examples:

Forming direct negative commands

To form basic direct negative commands, forget about how you formed commands above. Step 1 is starting out with the appropriate second-person imperfect conjugation of the verb.

Step 2: put ما at the beginning and ـش at the end.

That's it! A table of negative commands, using the same words as the big table above.

To negate those two irregular imperatives, you just do the two steps described above.

Expressing indirect negative commands

And aside from the direct negated imperative, there are a few other ways to tell someone not to do something:

1. Use بلاش (balaaš) with the appropriate second-person imperfect verb conjugation. This is not as strong as a direct negative order; it can have the connotation of a polite request or even mere advice/preference on behalf of the person talking.

بلاش can also be used with a مصدر.

2. Use إوعى (ew3a) with the appropriate second-person imperfect verb conjugation. Note that if you're addressing a woman, إوعى changes to إوعي (ewa3i), and if you're addressing a group, it becomes أوعوا (ewa3u). This word can have different connotations depending on how it's used; it can be a "watch out/take care!" kind of statement (like خللي بالك often is), a warning, or a very strong "Don't dare do that!" kind of statement.

3. And finally, there's إياك (iiyyaak) with the appropriate second-person imperfect verb conjugation. Note that if you're addressing a woman, إياك changes to إياكي (iiyaaki), and if you're addressing a group, it becomes إياكوا (iiyyaaku). إياك is from fuSHa but used colloquially to express a very strong prohibition (like "Don't you dare do that!!"). However, if it's used with someone you know well in a context that isn't angry, it doesn't necessarily express such strong feeling.