تمزح!
“تمزح!” (тамзах!) — you are joking! in Arabic. Phrase, level B1. Mazah, "a joke": tamzah — "you are joking!" The "oh come on" of elsewhere Arabic checks with a question about a joke — and that is more often admiration than doubt. In a live sentence: “تمزح! هذا مستحيل!” — You are joking! That is impossible! Written with the characters ت, م, ز, ح. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Arabic | تمزح! |
| Read in Latin letters | тамзах! |
| Translation | you are joking! |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Mazah, "a joke": tamzah — "you are joking!" The "oh come on" of elsewhere Arabic checks with a question about a joke — and that is more often admiration than doubt
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- تمزح! هذا مستحيل!тамзах! хаза мустахийль!You are joking! That is impossible!
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “you are joking!” in Arabic?
«تمزح!», read “тамзах!” In a live sentence: “تمزح! هذا مستحيل!” — You are joking! That is impossible! Phrase, level B1; written with the characters ت, م, ز, ح.
How is “تمزح!” written in Latin letters?
тамзах! This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Mazah, "a joke": tamzah — "you are joking!" The "oh come on" of elsewhere Arabic checks with a question about a joke — and that is more often admiration than doubt. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.