Mary Copeland

Category: Darija Learning

  • Never have I ever

    During a recent Darija lesson, I learned the construction “ما عمّرني” meaning “I have never….” It uses the base word عمّر meaning to fill, with a suffix in agreement with the person (thus, for “I” (first person singular) the suffix is “ني”). Sentences are then constructed by adding the verb you have never done in…

  • Colors

    Moroccan Arabic being “non-standard” and non-standardized has a certain amount of variation in its lexicon. Here you can find a table containing different translations for the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, black, and white from five different Darija books in their masculine, singular form, as well as the MSA (Modern Standard…

  • How I’m Learning Darija

    Though I am very lucky to have my own personal Moroccan Arabic speaker living with me; it’s not fair to him to request he listen to and correct my babbling in Darija 24/7. As such, I am using books and CDs to introduce myself to the language in a gradual manner. I then use what…