Why English to Arabic is harder than it looks
You are writing into a diglossia. Modern Standard Arabic is what gets written; Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and Maghrebi Arabic are what get spoken and, increasingly, texted. Translating into MSA is the safe choice and reads slightly formal in a casual chat, which is usually better than guessing the wrong dialect.
Arabic runs right to left, and your message may not. A sentence with an English name, a phone number, or a link mixes directions, and some keyboards scramble the result. Because you type in English and the keyboard produces the Arabic, the text is laid out correctly before it is sent.
Politeness is built from set phrases. إن شاء الله, الحمد لله, and ما شاء الله carry social meaning that a literal English source never supplies. A plain English “hopefully” becomes something flatter in Arabic than a native writer would use, so a friendly tone helps the wording land warmer.
Short vowels are not written. Arabic leaves them out, which makes the script compact and means a word’s exact reading comes from context. It is one reason translation into Arabic is easier to get right than translation out of it, and one reason the preview is worth reading for names and unfamiliar words.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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