Aislin

Greetings! I'm new here, am a beginning student of Arabic (native language is English) and I am having some difficulty translating a phrase. Would it be possible for anyone to give me some insight?

I am looking to translate the phrase, "What is beautiful is for the few" or alternatively, "What is beautiful belongs to the few", and am having some difficultly. What I have come up with so far is,

ماذا يكون جميلة القليل

So please tell me, how far off am I? What corrections need to be made? I really appreciate your help, thank you.

liy

you're welcome
your translation is false it has no you traslated the words and not the meanings
it can be
الجمال قليل= the beauty is few
or
الجمال لا يوجد الا قليلا
or
الجمال نادر
or
الجمال لا يوجد الا نادرا= i think that's the best
good luck

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Maghrébine c'est ce que je suis

Aislin

Would it be possible for you to tell me what the second and the last phrase you gave me means literally in english? Thank you kindly

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devanymfix

As Liy said Though I don't really understand what this sentece means beyond it's literal meaning. Does it mean, what is beautiful is not for everyone?

And if you wanna keep somwhat the same construction of the English sentence then :

What is beautiful is for the few = ما هو جميل هو للقلائل

This Arabic word by word translation can't be understood as the English one, it is important to translate the meaning, you should not learn a language by another one, because every language is different.

Welcome to the forum

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devanymfix

Word by word translation (I'm not responsible if the English sentences sounds crazy ) :

الجمال لا يوجد الا قليلا = The beauty does not exist except few (of it)

الجمال نادر = The beauty is rare

الجمال لا يوجد الا نادرا = Beauty does not exist except rarely

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Aislin

Let me clarify the meaning of the sentence to perhaps be more specific.

"What is beautiful is for the few" or alternatively, "What is beautiful belongs to the few" is a philosophical phrase that means only a few people have what is beautiful in life, meaning that life's beauty is rare and belongs only to a small amount of people. In my former sentence, "few" means a "few people". I'm not sure if this would change the kind of translation it would become? I do understand the construction of the phrase is not going to be word for word in English, I am just trying to get as close as I can to the meaning in Arabic

And thank you all for your wonderful replies, I appreciate the attention you're giving this .

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devanymfix

Well, I think this sentence will fit :
(I think you know why I color the words)
What is beautifull is rare & only few [people] own it = ما هو جميل نادر و لا يمتلكه إلا البعض

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