Saudi phrasebook
Timing and courtesy: it is done, later, in an hour, thank you for the effort.
Work in Saudi Arabia runs in English more often than it used to, and the Arabic that survives around it is the Arabic of timing and courtesy: it is done, later, in an hour, thank you for the effort, God give you strength. These are short, they are said every hour of the working day, and they are the phrases colleagues hear from a newcomer first.
They are also where the biggest misunderstandings live. Khalas can mean finished, enough, or stop, depending on the tone. Ba'dain means later and is not a promise of when. Inshallah after a deadline is not evasion; it is the normal way to say the deadline is real.
The entries here give you the phrase, the reply, the mistake most foreigners make with it, and the recording of the phrase and its examples - by a Saudi teacher, not a synthesiser.
1 entry
بعد ساعة
All SaudiIn an hour.
Ba'd sa'a - in an hour, literally after an hour - is the answer to half the questions you will be asked about time in Saudi Arabia, and swapping the last word gives you every other answer.
Hear it and read the entryEvery recording in the phrasebook is from the audio library of the Essential Saudi Dialect Book.
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