The expression ياريت (yarayt) in Levantine Arabic means “I wish that…”, “I hope that…”, or “if only…”. While in Modern Standard Arabic, you might come across أتمنى أن (atamanna an) to express “I hope that…”, you’ll find that in colloquial Arabic, ياريت is frequently used.

With this particular expression, you need to use the past tense for both past events (obviously!) as well as conditional sentences while you use the present tense (without the ب) to signify the present and future. Let’s look at some examples and go over all the different permutations in which you can use the example:

ياريت أشتريه (yarayt ashtireeh)

ياريتني أشتريه (yarayt-ni ashtireeh)

ياريت أني أشتريه (yarayt anni ashtireeh)

All three sentences above mean the same thing: “I wish that I could buy it!” As you’ve noticed, you can use ياريت by itself, add a أن after it, or add a suffix after it. Regardless, the meaning remains the same.

ياريت أعرف (yarayt a3rif)

ياريتني أعرف (yarayt-ni a3rif)

ياريت أني أعرف (yarayt anni a3rif)

To give another example, the above 3 sentences mean “I wish I knew.”

ياريت يكون هيك (yarayt ikoon hayk) translates to “I hope that’s the case” or “I hope that’s the way it’ll turn out”. The literally translation is “I hope it will be like that”.

ياريت أثلج اليوم (yarayt atlaj/athlaj il-yom) translates to “if only it snowed today” or “I wish that it would have snowed today”. The ث in أثلج can be pronounced as either the regular “th” or a “t”.

ياريت كنت بقدر (yarayt kunt bagdar) translates to “I wish I could have” or “if only I could have”. Recall how I mentioned above that you use the present tense without the ب to indicate the present and future. In this instance, you are using the past tense (كنت) and the present tense (with ب) to indicate a conditional.