The word Ma ما comes up way more than it should, to be honest.

and it is a cause of trouble for a lot of learners, however, with the right approach you will be able to understand it better and sleep well at night.

The confusing part.

If you started learning Spoken Arabic and then moved to MSA ( Modern Standard Arabic), you will encounter Ma in places you would not expect. The main reason is that Ma has about 6 uses in MSA and only 3 in Spoken Arabic. Since this website is for teaching spoken Arabic, I will only mention the 3 uses.

Ma as Emphasis

You have two ways to translate a sentence in English like ( how pretty is she).

One way would be using Ma alongside a superlative adjective something along the lines of ( ما أحلاها ).

Other examples below:

1) How smart you are! ما أذكاك

2) How ridiculous! ما أسحف الموضوع

Note here that I added the word موضوع meaning topic or subject because while in English you can use how + and adjective, in Arabic you always need a subject.

Ma as Negation

This function of Ma is the simplest one and the easiest to be understood. it is used to negate verbs in Arabic and I say verbs because negating adjectives you would use Mish مش.

Some examples:

1) I dont drink juice. ما بشرب عصير

2) She does not like you. هي ما بتحبك

3) We dont listen to music ما بنسمع للموسيقى

There is another word to negate verbs which is لا. In spoken Arabic you should use لا with negative commands only! like: don’t eat that. لا توكل هاد

Ma as a link

Ok sip your coffee now and pay attention to this because here comes the fun stuff.

We use Ma to link a preposition/adverb with a verb because in Arabic you can’t have a preposition followed directly by a verb.

Here are examples:

Before you go to sleep brush your teeth قبل ما تروح تنام فرشي سنانك

I suppose. ( Which translates literally to ‘ on top of what I think ) على ما أظن

more than you think ( Which translates literally to ‘ on tip of what you imagine ) فوق ما تتخيل

can you tell me why we did not use Ma in this phrase?

أنا راجع على البيت I am coming home.