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 …
Tag archives: Arabic
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 …
Fluent in French, is it really needed?
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 …
Masculine and Feminine
For those of you who have only learned and studied English the concept of Masculine and Feminine words is a completely foreign concept. Strangely enough, many of the languages in the world use Masculine and Feminine words. When I began studying arabic this concept was introduced to me. At first it seemed daunting but by …
Feelings and expressing yourself
One of the things I am struggling with these days is expressing myself in Darija. I can say simple things like I am happy, I am tired or I am sick but these are relatively simple and don’t really express how I am feeling with these feelings, ailments etc.. I will introduce a few techniques …
9eddem what does it really mean
Sometime in the beginning of 2016 I was at the airport in Casablanca (Mohammad V) and was in line trying to transfer to another flight that would take me home to Canada. While in line one of the security guys took my passport and asked me: feen 9eddem mnin nta. In my mind I thought …
Think like an Arab
Several years back when I was starting to learn Arabic, my teacher would often say, the key to success in learning the Arabic language is to think like an Arab. He said you had to see sentences as arabs see the sentences and not as you normally see sentences. Why was that? Well he further …
Common phrases 4 – civilities
Sidi Bouzid Beach – Al Jadida Morocco Here we go again with another bunch of phrases. Today we will be looking at civilities. When I started typing civilities I started thinking, did I just invent a word? I wanted to say some along the lines of being civil. So I looked it up online and …