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Learning Darijaالدارجة

Darija · the script · fuṣḥā

Moroccan
Arabic

from your own language

Most Arabic courses were written for you, then translated for everyone else. This one starts from what English actually gives you.

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One explanation
does not fit three mouths

Almost every Arabic course is written in English, then translated. The explanation arrives intact, but it was built for another mouth.

  1. i

    You get warned about the wrong things. Courses spend a page on خ because it is hard in English, and the same page on ت — without ever saying why that one is hard too.

  2. ii

    Your real problems go unnamed. Your t is aspirated and your vowels glide. Both are wrong in Arabic, and both are invisible to you.

  3. iii

    Your advantages go unused. You already own ث — the th of “think”. A French speaker has nothing like it. Nobody tells you to bank that and move on.

See the difference

plate i

Switch language and letter. The Arabic never moves; the explanation does.

ر

Five of the twenty-eight letters and of the first topics. The whole course works like this.

Where to start

Three ways in

ب

The script

Twenty-eight letters, four shapes each. The wall that stops everyone, and it takes weeks to climb.

Lesson 1 is open
دَ

Darija

The one people actually speak: health, social services, neighbours. The house specialty.

Lesson 1: greetings
فُ

Fuṣḥā

Newspapers, books, the news, the Qur'an. Read everywhere, spoken on the street nowhere.

In preparation

Sugar and alcohol

Both are Arabic. Both started with the article ال glued to the front. So why did alcohol keep its al- and sugar lose it entirely?

Fourteen Arabic letters swallow the l of the article — sun letters — and fourteen leave it: moon letters. Every al- word English kept is a moon-letter word. You have the vocabulary; the rule got sanded off on the way.

  • الكُحْل→alcohol moon
  • الجَبْر→algebra moon
  • الكِيمِيَاء→alchemy moon
  • المَنَاخ→almanac moon
  • السُّكَّر→sugar sun
  • الصِّفْر→cipher · zero sun
  • القُطْن→cotton sun
  • الزَّعْفَرَان→saffron sun
Sun — the l vanishes and the next consonant doubles. English kept none of these with their al-. Moon — the l is pronounced. These are the ones English kept whole.

Course status

Just opened

Lesson 1 is ready to work through. The rest follow in order.

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