Negation – flipping that sentence upside down

In Darija I found negating sentences really simple. When I say simple, i’m speaking only about the concept of negation because let’s face it, this language is really difficult to learn. In Darija there are only 3 forms I have come across so far. If being asked a yes or no question you can answer with no by saying la. So if someone asks you do you want ice cream, you can answer la. Maybe the last sentence wasn’t the best example because really who is going to say no to ice cream. Kidding aside I think you see the point. If you want to say no just say la.

For nominal sentence just add the mashi in front of the noun. For example if the sentence is “This is not a book” the sentence would be Hada mashi ktab. The tricky thing about the word mashi is that it can also be used as verb to mean to go. As with other verbs if mashi is being used as a verb it will be conjugated so if you hear the word mashi without any conjugation, then most likely it is being used as a negation in the sentence.

For verbal sentences, negation is represented by surrounding the verb with “ma” and “sh”. For the sentence bghit tonobil (I want a car), the negation would be (ma)+bghit+(sh) or mabghitsh (I do not want a car). For me, the hardest part is pronouncing the word. But with all things practice will make it easier.

Verb list

Phrase list