“Yalla!”

Yet another Arabic word used liberally in Hebrew slang, “Yalla!” is used as the equivalent of both “Let’s go!” and “Come on.” It can be heard at soccer games: “Yalla Maccabi!” and just about anywhere that impatience or urgency exists, i.e. the entire country, all the time. It can be used with the exclamation point, but also without, in which case it connotes something equivalent to “OK, fine, let’s go.” It is also often followed by “kvar” (already).

Examples:

• Yalla! Let’s go already!
• Yalla! Bring that over here.
• Do you want to go to the movies? Yalla.
• Yalla. Are you ready?