If you ever visit Morocco, you will almost immediately see the French influence on this country. Although Morocco is an Arab country and the official language is Arabic you will see French everywhere. What I mean is that you will see signs everywhere in French. When I first visited Morocco I was surprised at how many people were fluent in French. I think almost half the people I spoke to in Morocco spoke fluent French. One of my Arabic teachers (who was from Morocco) told me as a child they were taught French at a very young age. In his case they were taught by a teacher from France who only spoke French. He said none of the students knew any French but by the end of the year they were all able to speak French. When I returned home I spoke to a few people from Tunisia and Algeria and they mentioned that the French influence was similar in their countries. This influence is the reason why the Darija is mixed with some French. The question is, do you need to know French to learn Darija?
The French I have seen is mostly in the vocabulary. The following is a table of a few Darija words with French influence
| Darija | English | French |
| Fromage | Cheese | Fromage |
| La Gare | The station | La Gare |
| Tonobil | Car | Automobile |
| Tonobus | Bus | Autobus |
| Batto | Boat | Bateau |
The word ‘the’ in Arabic is translated to ‘al’ and in French is translated to ‘le’ or ‘la’, in Darija this is translated to ‘l’ which I feel is merge between ‘al’ and ‘l’. Another interesting thing I noticed while on the train and listening to conversations is that French can interjected as needed. I thought maybe if you can interject French in Darija maybe you can interject Arabic so I tried this with someone. Unfortunately, it did not work. The person I spoke to became really offended and told me (In English) to not use Arabic when trying to speak Darija.
You cannot deny the French influence and it will obviously help in your learning but I do not think it is necessary to have a French background to learn Darija. The French words used in Darija can be learned and with practice will not feel foreign.
Word list
| Kma | To smoke |
| W9f | To stand up |
| Bda | To start |
| B9a | To stay |
| Khnaz | To stink |
| Nj7 | To succeed |
| Tkhn9 | To suffocate |
| 9tar7 | To suggest |
| 7lf | To swear |
| 3am | To swim |
| Khda | To take |
| 7dr | To talk |
| Da9 | To taste |
| 9ra | To teach |
| Shkr | To thank |
| Fkr | To think |
Works Cited
“Speak Moroccan Arabic.” Speak Moroccan Arabic RSS. Web. 06 Sept. 2017.