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 …

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 …

Apartment vs Hotel and why I choose Air BnB

When I was first started travelling, especially on my own I always expected to stay in hotels. My assumption was that hotels were just better. I never thought once of using Air BnB or “Bed and Breakfast”. For some reason when I heard the term “Bed and Breakfast” I thought of staying in some creepy …

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 …

3ammer – what does it really mean?

Here we go again with another word with several meanings. These are important as the more meanings they can convey the better odds that you will hear this word in conversation. We will be looking at the word 3ammer. In Darija this is a very frequently used word in conversations so it’s important to know …