hello everybody! very happy to find this web site! My husband is from Morocco and I’m from Kazakhstan. We’ve been together for a long time but he never really sat down with me to teach me Darija. We have a baby on the way and I want our kids to be fluent in Moroccan, Kazakh, Arabic, Russian languages (this is what him and me speak). My husband already learned lots of words from my languages but I never got to learn much of his because there is no books on how to learn Darija. If my kid will speak Moroccan to my in-laws, i want to be able to understand him and them. Very excited to learn it through this site:)))) Just wanted to thank the creators of the site for a great vocabulary list and grammar lessons!
Welcome to SpeakMoroccan, Asiem. Are you writing from Kazakhstan? We say Khazakhistan in Arabic :hap:. Finally, Moroccans are really EVERYWHERE :).
You have enough time ahead of you to learn Darija by the time your future baby is able to speak, in shâ Allah. Start studying right away, and post your questions, we’ll be ready to help. And check out all our friends who are learning, they are great fun :).
See you around!
Welcom, Asiem!
I am not married to a marrocan, I only want to speak to the people in Maroc when travelling there, and it is worth doing the effort.
The forum is a great support, so be there before the baby is talking…
Asiem welcome!
There is a great course by Richard Harell…
It is published by the georgetown press. I just bought it from amazon.com. It comes with an audio cd also. Also this forum seems great for learning…
I wish you the best of luck 
Thank You everybody for replies:) I did not expect that so many of you will be so warming welcome:)
I’m from Kazakhistan, but me and my husband met in US where we are living right now. I have a far relative who is also married to Moroccan and lives in Morocco, they’ve got two kids I think and I’m sure that her Moroccan is perfect:)))
to Ayita78: thank you for the info, I’ll look for this book.
With the audio I’m OK so far because my husband is willing to pronounce every word I’m learning from here (I spell it in my language because we have almost all the sounds from Arabic, easier than in English).
to Marylin: I’m impressed that you are learning a language not because you really have to but because you want to!
I know that our baby is going to be confused at first. I definitely will teach the baby Kazakh (my native language), but Russian I use more even with my own family, so I’ll try to push this language too. Moroccan will be a primary focus too because I believe that the baby is going to be more Moroccan than Kazakh:) we were also planning on sending our kid to an Islamic school where he/she will learn Arabic, and of course English will be there no matter what because that’s the only way me and my husband communicate. Would be nice to teach French too, but I think the baby will be too overwhelmed with 5 languages already:)
And finally, I need to learn Darija because one day we might end up living in Morocco:)
Welcome among us Asiem. Happy to know you.
i am really impressed: Morocco is a very known country all around the world! (same in the most unexpected countries!!):mdr::mdr:
i am very proud of my country, my culture!:hap::hap:
Mr7ba bik Asiem ! :welcome:
wow you’re from Kazakhstan I never spoke to someone from Kazakhsan before 
Welcome Asiem!!
What an amazing mixture masha’allah!!
its good to know that u want to learn some darija!! Ask any question u want and we will try our best to answer you!!
and by the way, i have a friend from kazakhstan
see you!
We have a friendly group in the forum, that’s why every member joining us receives the same warm welcome :).
And wow 5 languages, that sure will be overwhelming, but kids learn easily, so hopefully it will work out fine for you, in sha Allah.
@ Ayita:
Would you mind telling us again about the books you’re using in this topic?
No problem.
The book I bought is called A BASIC COURSE IN MOROCCAN ARABIC It is by Richard S. Harrell with Mohammed Abu-Talib and Wiliam Carroll. It is published by Georgetown Press and is available through amazon.com.
It comes with a CD so that you can learn to pronunciate and practice each and every lesson( Note: These are MP3 files they will not play on a regular CD player if it is not able to play MP3’s, It happened to me!). It is aproximatly 400 pages of lessons. With a little less than the second half being dialogues.
On the back cover it explains the book to be a text book in spoken Moroccan Arabic that is written for beginners- those who are unfamiliar with the Arabic language,alphabet, pronunciation and grammer. It is designed to present these in a proggresive and user friendly way.
It retails for 34.00 USD
and looks like this.
I hope this information helps
wow, guys! Thank You All!
I showed the book to my husband and told him that I’m gonna buy this book, he responded to it as always: “Insha Allah” :)))
to Ayita: thank You! I will start my basics with this site - but the book is something that I will buy for sure! I’m gonna need it when we go to Morocco!
to MarocRulz: thank You! When I was growing up in Kazakhstan I would never imagine that will marry someone from exotic country like Morocco:))) say hi to your kazakh friend!
to Hiba: before I came to US I’ve never talked or seen anybody from Morocco. And now my kids are going to be half Magarba:)))
to Kounouz: Happy to meet you all too! I love Moroccan culture (very similar to ours) and proud to have a baby inside of me whose daddy comes from such a rich culture with nice people!
to SimplyMoroccan: you are really good about paying attention to the new comers. If no one responded to my 1st post I would probably lose interest in this site after a while. But knowing that there are so many learners who are willing to help and the Administrators who are so good too - I will definitely will try to improve my Darija to the level that one day my whole post will be in Darija:))) the only trouble I’m having right now is to memorize the numbers as letters. Have to look at my cheat sheet all the time. I remember “7” only because of “7biba” :)))
P.S. Morocco is truly known everywhere: my hometown in Kazakhstan (Almaty) has a Moroccan restaurant! Since I married my husband my dad who also loves soccer is always for Moroccan teams:)))))
DOES ANYBODY HAVE GOOD SUGGESTIONS ON GOOD MOROCCAN BOY NAMES? FOR A GIRL WE CAME UP WITH LEILA, BUT CAN’T DECIDE A BOY NAME YET. WE ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING THAT WILL FIT BOTH CULTURES (his, mine and easy for Americans). BUT IF WE FIND A REALLY NICE MOROCCAN NAME THAT WE DONT HAVE IN MY COUNTRY, THEN WE WILL JUST GO WITH IT:)
@ Ayita:
Thank you :). I actually meant that you do so in the topic I gave you the link to :hap:, so that we concentrate all the info in one place.
@ Asiem:
Thank you :).
As I say all the time, the most important numbers to memorize for transcription are 7 and 3. If you want to write in Arabic letters, that would be even better. You can rely on memorizing 7 and 3 on this “l7biba a 3iniyya” :^^: (Sweetheart, o my eyes). Does it help?
For In sha Allah, it sure does sometimes mean “yeah, right”, if it’s said ironically. But most of the time, it’s by belief. If God wills, and then circumstances permit, then sure. [I will look for a funny story about in sha Allah and post it, you’ll then understand why Moroccans say in sha Allah a lot].
You can be the ambassador of your country in the forum, so you should be telling us about your culture and similarities you find with Morocco. As you can see, most of us do not know much about Kazakhstan.
PS: If you wish, you can let this topic be for welcomes, and open a new thread for name suggestions. We sure have many to suggest to you. You can do so in the various topics forum.
Sorry I did not notice the link. I was at work and links are disabled on our computers… Will post again in that topic
I like the name “Sufian” (not sure about the spelling) but it’s a famous and sweet Moroccan boy name as far as I know
youssef / yusuf.
Amine
Ayyoub
saîd
…
2 Admin: I would love to share about similarities between Morocco and Kazakh cultures, should I start a new thread for that? I kind of hoped to find one more Kazakh person interested in Darija. Here in Houston I knew at least 2 more Kazakh-Moroccan couples, but they were only dating and broke up a while ago.
And your sentence for 7 and 3 helps a lot because I know already how to say “eye” and that helps me with memorizing sound of 3.
Kounouz, thank You for suggestions:)
Hiba, I love this name too but we have too many Soufians around us and we don’t have this name in my country:)))
@ Ayita:
Thank you :).
@ Asiem:
Yes sure, feel free to open a new thread for that.
As for my name suggestions, let’s see:
Anas
Zakaria (could be shortened to Zak)
Yassine
SimplyMoroccan : Chokran l’wajib
Asiem: I always liked the boy name Marouane and the female version Maroua
[quote=Ayita78]SimplyMoroccan : Chokran l’wajib
Asiem: I always liked the boy name Marouane and the female version Maroua[/quote]
Ayita, a correction?
It’s: lâ shukra 3alâ wâjîb. = No thanks for a duty, that’s the literal translation :).
lâ shukra 3alâ wâjîb Got it :okay: