Syrian Arabic - Worth its Weight in Gold

I was watching Bab Al Hara (باب الحارة)looking for new words or phrases to do a post on and I found a good one, "worth its weight in gold". This is a Syrian show and the way the guy says it in the clip is really quick so I made a video with the phrase pronounced more slowly.

All you need to know to give this clip context is that this guy is coming to give Abu Hatim (ابو حاتم) some news. They are not friends.



(In the video there is an error. I say هزر for "guess" instead of حزر which is the correct word for "guess". Hard H is the one you want.)

شو؟ ان شاء الله جايب اخبار معتة مثل العادة (shoo? inshallah jayib akhbar m'iteh mithl al'aadeh.) - What? I hope you've brought bad news as usual.

He's being sarcastic when he says ان شاء الله . He doesn't really hope it's bad news.

معِتة - bad, terrible

مثل العادة - as usual


جايبلك خبر بيسوى تقله دهب (jayib lak khabar byiswa tu'loo dahab) - I've brought you news that's worth its weight in gold.

Literally this phrase is "I'm bringing you news thats weight equals gold."

The word جايب (jayib) is the فاعل (fa'il) or "doer" form of جيب (jeeb) which means "to bring".

يسوى (yiswa) - "it equals"

تقله (tu'loo) - "its weight". In MSA it would be ثقله , but often in the Levant region the ث becomes ت and the ق becomes a ء . This is difficult at first, but you get used to it after listening a lot.

دهب (dahab) - "gold". In MSA the word is ذهب , but the ذ becomes a د in dialect.


عن صهري ابو شهاب؟ ('an Suhri abu shhab?) - About my brother in law Abu Shihab?

You'd have to have watched the show for this to mean anything to you.

صهر (Suhr) - brother in law

The way he says شهاب almost sounds like شاب because the ه is very light.


لا والله ما حزرت يا ابو حاتم. هالخبرية مو عن سهرك ابو شهاب (la wallah ma Hazart ya abu hatim. hal khabariyeh moo 'an suhrak abu shhab) - No, you didn't guess (correctly), Abu Hatim. This news is not about your brother in law Abu Shihab.

حزر (Hazar) - to guess