Brief introduction; I’m newly married to a Moroccan and although she can speak and write in over 5 languages… I fall into the category of being an American… in other words I know one language…
I’m attempting to correct this by learning Moroccan and French but I have found Moroccan to be particularly challenging since their are only a few books on darji and from what I have found depending on who it is writing they tend to use different spellings as well. Example Shokran/Chokran…
One of our Moroccan friends told me a joke that I though I would end with.
What do you call someone that knows 3 languages?.. Tri-lingual
What do you call someone that knows 2 languages?.. Bi-lingual
What do you call someone that knows 1 laguage?.. an American…
dude this is an old joke … nowadays americans are trying to learn more languages coz maybe they know that English wont last ‘‘the international language’’ forever …
well about books of DARIJA , as u said every writer use a different spelling :s … here in the forum we use the spelling used by moroccans in chat , sms …
i wanna tell one more thing … darija is not easy , thats not english with rules gramma … u may say a sentence and a native correct u , when u ask him why ? he says I DONT KNOW …
so be prepared to learn a lot , u’ll need a list where u put words with the spelling we use here and with ur own spelling so u can pronounce it good ( in this ur wife can help u ), and i wanna say that ur lucky to have her coz many darija learners here in the forum are just learning new words without hearing them from a native so they r usin songs TV shows … and this is not always useful .
finally mre7ba bik ( ur welcome )
ps- have a look to the old lessons here in the forum and if u dont understand sth u can always ask about it … wuahahahha u have a lot of work to do
Welcome sbroughton
about different spellings, take that easy since darija is not written in the latin alphabet so u can use whatever appeals to you as long as u’re giving a close pronunciation which have at the end the same meaning.
those who use “ch” are concerned with french while “sh” are concerned with english, and so on…
welcooooooome & wa 3likom ssalam… you should make yourself welcome in the translation section, browse through previous topics and find yourself some affectionate things to say to your wifey Allah ykmmlkom bikhir (sp anyone?) & good luck!
What you tell about americans it’s valid for spaniards. Even if they study english in the school, even if in Spain there are more than four languages spoken, most of spaniards speaks only spanish. And a bad one.
mre7ba bik ( ur welcome )
easy measy