Saudi phrasebookHelp and emergencies
Mihtaj musa'ada (محتاج مساعدة): how to say I need help in Saudi Arabic
Mihtaj musa'ada - I need help - is the plainest way to ask for help in Saudi Arabic, and it works on anyone: a shop assistant, a nurse, a policeman, a stranger at the next pump.
محتاج مساعدة
mihtaj musa'ada
I need help.
Literally: needing help.
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Who says it, and to whom
Neutral and direct, as a man says it. A woman says mihtaja musa'ada (محتاجة مساعدة), the same words with the feminine ending. Fine with a stranger; with someone you know, the softer forms below sound warmer.
The reply
What a Saudi says back
أبشر
abshir
Consider it done.
The Saudi yes to a request - I've got you. To a woman it is abshiri.
Hear it in a sentence
3 lines from the book
ممكن تساعدني؟
mumkin tsa'idni?
Can you help me?
The softer, question-shaped version. The one to use when you are interrupting someone.
تكفى ساعدني
takfa sa'idni
Please, help me.
Takfa is the Saudi please that carries urgency. Save it for when it matters.
عندي مشكلة
'indi mushkila
I have a problem.
The sentence that usually comes next, before you explain what.
What it really means
There is no "I" in it. Mihtaj is a participle - "in need of" - and Saudi Arabic drops the pronoun, so the two words do the work of a whole sentence: mihtaj musa'ada, needing help, I need help. The second word, musa'ada, is help as a noun, and it is the word on the sign above the information desk at the airport.
It is said exactly where you would expect and a few places you would not: at a pharmacy counter at midnight, to the security guard at a compound gate, to the man at the next pump when your card will not read. Saudis answer a request for help quickly and without ceremony - usually with abshir, consider it done, or with wesh tabi?, what do you need? - and the conversation is over before you have finished worrying about your grammar.
The mistake foreigners make
Reaching for the textbook. Ahtaju ila musa'ada (أحتاج إلى مساعدة) is the Fusha sentence, and every Saudi understands it - it just sounds like a news bulletin. The other mistake is the opposite one: the bare command sa'idni, help me, said to a stranger with nothing in front of it. It is not wrong, but it is an order. Put takfa or law samaht in front of it, or use the two words at the top of this page, and it becomes a request.
In Egyptian you'd hear: mihtag musa'da - the same words, with the j of mihtaj turned into a hard g, which is the difference between the two dialects most people notice first.
Every recording in the phrasebook is from the audio library of the Essential Saudi Dialect Book.
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