My personal journey into the Darija language and culture
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 …
Continue reading “Translations of 7ta what does it really mean”
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
So another month (closer to a month and a half ) has passed. I’ve looked over my progress from the previous month and I have to say, I feel I have made improvements. Expressing myself is becoming easier now. Although I can’t understand everything I listen to, I am able to pick out more …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
