Usually when I write a blog I have some sort of flow to my thoughts and I try to write to provide some knowledge. This blog is pretty much a random thought in my head with no structure. One of the things I will do from time to time as part of my learning is …
Author archives: Hamza Ally
Words so nice you say them twice
Words that are used twice is not something you would think is common however, I was listening to a conversation the other day and heard a phrase I haven’t heard in a long time. The phrase was ‘so-so’. For those of you who haven’t heard this expression before, it means neither good or bad. These …
Darija word ras – what does it really mean
Of all the words I have seen in darija, the darija word ras is one that I have seen used in more expressions than any other word. The word means head so coming from an English-speaking background, it makes sense that the word would have so many expressions. I’m sure we all of heard some …
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G vs Gh
In arabic there is not an equivalent for the letter G. The closest letter that resembles G is more of a sound that comes from your throat, which is symbolized (Gh). I didn’t think there was a G vs Gh discussion that would need to be made. For the longest time, In my journey, I …
Translations of 7ta what does it really mean
When I started learning Darija one of the first phrases I learned was me too. When I think back this seems to be a strange a thing to learn at first. I think that the reason I learned this first was because I wanted to know how to agree with someone. Just to let you …
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The con man – some things to watch out for
On Saturday night I was out with my friends. As most guys do when they get together we were just shooting the breeze talking about all kinds of things. One of my friends mentioned someone who had some problems and said because of these personal problems, he would never be able to marry because whoever …
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Ghadi the word of the future
In Darija when speaking in the future tense, the sentence is formed differently. You see in English, you would use a verb like “will’ or “going” to indicate a future tense. In Darija the contruction works a bit differently. When wanting to speak about future events in Darija, there is a special word that is …
Ra what does it really mean
The other day I was speaking with my fiance and told her that I would speak to her later as I had to run some errands. She then told me khod rahtk. As usual, I had no idea what she was saying. It turns out this Darija phrase means take your time. This had me …
How much vocabulary do you need to know?
A long time ago when I decided that I would become fluent Arabic (and no, I’m still not fluent) I spoke to someone I knew who learned the Arabic language and was not an Arabic speaker. I asked him how many words did you have to know to be able to speak in Arabic. He …
Conversations now available
For those of you who have been waiting for my posts, I sincerely apologize. I have spent the past week trying to get the conversations section up and running and I can finally say they are now available. I have posted 3 conversations with the script and translation as well as some of my own …