On 'Daba?'

First of all ‘daba’ is an Arabic word that means ‘now.’ Why is this word worth writing about? Well when you don’t understand most of the language circling your head, ‘daba’ is an important word to be able to hear and pick out in a conversation. Along with the question words: Skun? Snu? Fin? Fuqash? Alash? Kifash? and ‘Wesh?’ (in English: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? and ‘Is it the case that?’) Daba is important because it means you might either understand the sentence it is in, or promptly be required to do something.

Most of your life in a new language is lived in uncertainty. This is because you have no way of knowing when some says something like, ‘Ana gadi nhsd zitun mn bed 3id’ that they are telling you they will harvest their olives after the holiday. You are not going to be able to connect this sentence with something that happens two weeks from now. Daba is so important because it is THE context word. Other sentences can be ignored knowing that they won’t make sense. However ‘daba’ sentences come with the context of the moment so if someone says, ‘Ana gadi nhsd zitun daba.’ And then walks into a field and starts hitting an olive tree with a stick until the olives fall, you can safely presume that his sentence meant something like ‘I am going to go hit that olive tree over there with a stick until the olives fall now.’