shiba3tay

You'll have noticed that many of the adjectives featured on Kuwaiti Word a Day are in the masculine form. There is no particular reason for this, only for the sake of consistency and because you can easily make the feminine form by adding -ah on the end of masculine adjectives.

When it comes to verbs, making the feminine form requires a little more work. Let's take today's verb "to have enough" as our example.

If you're talking to a male who's piling food on his plate and you want to tell him 'you are going to get full,' you'd say raa7 tishba3. If however, you're talking to a female, you add an -iin onto the end of the verb, to make tishba3iin.

Most verbs in Kuwaiti follow this same rule. 'Do you want salt?' when said to a male is tabii mil7?

When the same question is said to a female, you'd say tabiin mil7?

This is the rule for the present tense. To get the feminine version of the verb in the past tense requires adding a different sound onto the masculine form. It's more like an -ay sound.

So if you ask a male, 'have you had enough food for fu6uur?' you'd say shiba3t? If you asked a female that same question you'd say shiba3tay? And here we arrive at today's word.

shiba3tay is a statement to a girl - 'you're full' but use the exact same word, add a question mark and shiba3tay? becomes a question - 'are you full?' Easy.

In the past tense, you can also use the pronouns -ik (for a male), -ich (for a female) and -kum (for a group. For example, bas-ik kafiyah? means "have you had enough?" (>m).

Asking shiba3tay? when a female guest refuses a second helping of your home-cooked machbuus is not the only way you can use the verb. It can refer to having enough of anything, sleep included.

shiba3tay nawm? - 'did you have enough sleep?' - the Kuwaiti prince asks Sleeping Beauty as she rises from her bed.