I’m beginning to see why so many op-eds I read that have been written by native Arabic speakers sounds so pompous, it’s kind of how the Arabic language is structured. It’s difficult to describe, but here’s a (very) small example. In English, I might ask “What do you think Randy?”, but in Arabic you would say, “What do you think YA Randy?” The Ya is a way of addressing the person, even in informal speech. In proper Fusa (MSA), you might also say the equivalent of “I my name is Isaac.” (Ana Ismee essak). There is a fair amount “extra” stuff thrown in that could make the translated text sound stuffy. This is good because it gives me a reason to give them the benefit of the doubt when reading. I always assumed that they were pompous windbags, now I think that maybe they’re just windbags:-)
Isaac