The use of prepositions can vary greatly between Arabic and English, and it’s often the case that the worldview of speakers of both languages determines the prepositions they use, which of course depends on context. For example, where Arabic speakers use ‘in’ to refer to days, English speakers use ‘on’, instead.

To continue where we left off last week, we’re going to explore more prepositions (two prepositions) today and look at the differences that exist between those prepositions in Arabic and English.

 

The first prepositions we’re going to look at is ‘on’:

(On)

The most obvious use for this preposition, that is the position ‘on top of’ of an object in relation to a surface, is the same in both languages.

1- The cup is on the desk

الفنجان على الطاولة

Al-finjaan  ʕala  at-tawela

 

However, ‘on’ can also be used to refer to moving surfaces or objects, such as buses and planes.

2- I’m on the bus.

In Arabic,  على   ‘ala (on) is never used to express this concept. Instead, في  fi (in) is used.

So, the same example would be expressed in Arabic as:

 

I’m on the bus.

أنا في الحافلة

Ana al-aan  fi  al-haafila

 

The third way in which the English preposition ‘on’ is used is in reference to the time. For example:

3- I’ll visit you on Monday.

In Arabic, the concept is also expressed differently. In Arabic, one could either use في   fi (in) to refer to days:

I’ll visit you on Monday.

سأزورك في يوم الاثنين

Sa-azour-uk  fi  yawm  al-ithnain

 

Or one could get rid of the preposition altogether. For example:

I’ll visit you on Monday.

سأزورك يوم الاثنين

Sa-azour-uk  yawm  al-ithnain

*The second instance (no preposition) is usually preferred to the one with ‘fi’ in it.

 

The second preposition to look at today is:

(About)

When ‘about’ is generally used to talk about a topic or a subject matter, which is the most common usage, things are straightforward and both languages express the idea in the same way. As  you can see in the next example, the simple equivalent to ‘about’ in Arabic is ”an’.

1- I talked about Ahmed today

تكلمت عن أحمد اليوم

Takallam-at  ʕan  Ahmed  il-yawm

 

About can also be combined with the adjective ‘mad’ to create the adjective phrase ‘mad about’. In Arabic, however, we use بِـ  bi and not عن  ”an’. For example:

2- She’s mad about Mike

هي شغوفة (مجنونة) بـمايك

Hiya   shaghoofa-h  (majnoon-ah)  bi-Mike

Finally, and while ‘about’ is again used to refer to ‘estimation of value’, there’s again another preposition in Arabic that is specifically used for this concept, that is  حوالي ‘hawaali’ (approximately).

3- There are about twenty people.

هناك حوالي عشرون شخص

Hunak-a hawaali  ʕishroon  shaks-an

 

I hope this post helped you to have an idea of the different ways in which prepositions are expressed and used in Arabic and how similar or different they are in relation to Arabic.