How to use the verb nizil / نزل in Spoken Levantine Arabic
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This is the 3rd post in a series about the different ways you can use the most common verbs in Spoken Lebanese Arabic so that you can make the most out of all the Arabic you learn. See the other posts here.
“nizil” is a verb that you will use all of the time and in many different ways. In general it can be defined as to go down, but, as you will see below, the meaning of the verb really depends on the context of the sentence…
Some of the different ways to use nizil…
| I often go down* to Beirut these days, in order to look for a job. |
ها الإيام عم بنزل كتير على بيروت عشان فتّش ع شغل |
| The weather is really nice, we will get in the sea. |
لأنّه الطقس كتير حلو، قرّرنا ننزل ع البحر. |
| We’re going* downtown to shop for tonight’s party. |
نازلين ع السوق نجيب كم غرض لحفلة المسا |
| When we went to Cairo, we stayed in a hotel with affordable prices |
لمّا سافرنا ع القاهرة نزلنا بأوتيل أسعارُه مقبولة |
| I don’t like to take the lift, I’ll take the stairs (down) |
ما بحبّ إنزل بالأسونسور، رح إنزل ع الدّرج |
| A new movie has been released and we want to see it. |
نزل فيلم جديد بالسينما وعبالنا نحضرُه. |
| I want to get out of the bus! |
بدّي إنزَل من الباص! |
| The US dollar (currency) is real low these days! |
الدولار نازل منيح هاالإيام!! |
| My salary is being transferred to my bank account at the end of each month. |
كل آخر شهر معاشي عم ينزل بالحساب |
| Get down from the ladder, you’re going to fall down! |
نزال بسرعة عن السّلُّم !!! أحسن ما توقع |
| The plane landed an hour ago. |
الطيارة نزلت من ساعة |
| When a new fashion is released, prices are high then they start to go down |
دايماً لمّا بتنزل موضة جديدة بتكون أسعارها غالية وشوي شوي بتبلّش الأسعار تنزل. |
| Come down here, I need you. |
نزال لعندي لتحت معاوزك |
*you might have noticed that nizil is frequently used by native speakers to mean to go (instead of raa7). Here the idea of using this is because you typically go down from your apartment into the crowd or go down from your village to Beirut, for example.
And here is how it is conjugated…
In our Verbs Dictionary in Levantine Colloquial Arabic (for sale at ALPS Beirut or online here) we find the verb and see that it is tagged with an A meaning it is an essential verb to learn and use first, what it means, its form and how it is conjugated in the present and past tenses.
