Hi everyone. I have been to Morocco 7 times now and love many things about your country. I am married to a Moroccan and I have a great group of friends and family there. My husband speaks English very well but his family doesn’t and I want to learn some Darija so we can communicate better. We get by with the little french that we all know and my few words of Darija but my husband acts as translator all the time for us. I learned some MSA from books but it’s not the same and my husband has taught me a lot too but I want to surprise him too. It’s funny because I can understand a lot of Darija and usually get the gist of what’s being said but I always respond in English! So my next trip is in April and I really want to surprise everyone with some better speaking skills. My family lives in Marrakech and I have been to Agadir, Essouaria and Rabat. That’s all about me! So thank you for this site and the help I know I’m going to need!
hi roxanne! welcome here, interesting story :hap: we’re all here to learn and help, i’m sure by april your family will all be WOW-ed 
just have a sneak around, you’ll pick up random things, and if there’s anything you want to ask, ask 
Welcome roxannej!
You will find a lot of help here!
Hello Roxannej! Welcome to the Darrija Forum!!! Nuwwara and Tukha and Simply Moroccan and the rest of the nice people here can help you a lot; all you have to do is let them.
Where do you live? You said your husband’s English is very good, so are you in Canada? The US? Great Britain? My husband is from Casablanca. We don’t go to Morocco very often because it is very hard to do so when you live in the US. I here that the people who live in France, Spain, Italy and other European countries are able to go home much more frequently.
Welcome again Roxannej!
Heyy!
Welcome to the darija forum!
Hope u enjoy it and see you around!
Well, Hello again everyone! I just noticed (and I am SURE that it just happened in, say, the last couple of hours) that there have been at least TWO more new promotions, in addition to Tukha’s…
CONGRATULATIONS ON BECOMING MODERATORS YA MarocRuls and Nuwwara! Coooooollll. But, unfortunately, I see that the absent Kounouz is now labeled as Mmalin Ddar… I never had the chance to interact with Kounouz; I hope she is alright, in France or wherever she is.
And, where is Simply Moroccan these days? I miss her.
Congratulations, once more, oh ye high achieving posters!!!
Thanks all for your warm welcome! We live in Vancouver, British Columbia. Beautiful place but pretty darn cold today! Not exactly Morocco! My husband learned some English in Morocco but it improved very quickly after he met me. He attended the American Language Instititute and then I became his personal English as a Second Language teacher! It’s not what I DO for a living but I had great fun teaching him. Now his world is filled with English so it’s easier for him. We still have some grammar and vocabulary lessons from time to time. Especially grammar. He made some bad habits before he met me and they are still hard to break. Now for me, I just have to figure out a way to practice pronunciation in secret! But I have some cd’s from my MSA book so that should help! I know I will get used to it but sometimes it feels like I’m gagging or twisting my tongue in ways it was never meant to twist!
Roxannej, Are you using, "Al Kitaab fi Ta3lum ul 3arabiyya? Or, are you using the EMSA books (the Orange Books, from Cambridge University Press, but done in Michigan)… or, are you using the set from Al Madina Al Munnawara? Are you taking the class with the benefit of an instructor, or are you all by your lonesome? …I am sure you have been told this, but, believe me, when I was told, I thought I understood and I most certainly did not… did not understand that there is a world of difference between MSA and any of the dialects. Moroccan Dialect seems to be particularly difficult in terms of its pronunciations; most Eastern Arabs, when confronted with the choice to speak in Arabic with a Maghribi or to resort to English, would almost always choose English. There are long consonant clusters in Moroccan which defy the laws of MSA pronunciation, one of which is called, “Iltiqaa as saakinayn”, and means that it is against the rules for two un-vowelled consonants to succeed each other. I am not telling you this to discourage you. Far from it; I can see that you are highly motivated, having already visited Morocco seven times, and I imagine you have more facility with the language than you really are aware of. I just want to warn you that, if you take MSA tapes as your standard of how to say things. you will be misled. Do you have access to satellite television, and the two Moroccan channels, 2m and AlMaghribiyya? Or, do you have access to the Harrel tapes out of George Washington University? The phonetics of North African Arabic are in a league quite their own. I wish I could send you some audio files, but I don’t have any. If you go online to the Defense Institute Language School at Monterrey’s website there are some exercises available to the public at large which can give you an idea of your comprehension level, but I think they only have Iraqi, Levantine and Egyptian. I hope that is of some help to you. And I think it’s marvelous that you are going to surprise your husband and his family with this great gift of caring and effort. Good luck.
OH, and I just saw that HIBA, too, is a new Moderator. Congratulations!
thnxx ummmaryam and congrats to all new mods
thankyou um maryam, INCHALLAH YOUMIK XD
wow, um maryam, you are so quick to catch on, hehehe, machallah!
all the best roxanne, see we have sweeties like um maryam here who are always willing to help :hap:
Unfortunatly MSA and Darija are so different that for me MSA wasn’t and isn’t much help while learning Darija. You should get also material for Darija. You could get the Harrell book that comes along with the old recordings an mp3 or you could download the Peace Corp Manual and get recording from a Yahoo groupe dedicated to learn Moroccan Arabic. For the books look here: http://www.speakmoroccan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=699&p=1
i agree with nuwwara! i mean SOME words and sentence forms (only VERY few) are similar/same, but i speak fluent arabic and i’m still always baffled by our beautiful darija xD
Tukha i think we have to give u the Moroccan passport!
Not only the vocabular, also the grammar is different and because of the missing vovels it is also hard to recognize MSA word in Darija.
MAROCRULZ I THINK I LOVE YA XD
THAT’S THE NICEST THING I’VE BEEN TOLD!
gimme oneeeeeeeeeeeee :hap:
Welcome Roxanne! Good to see another Canadian here.
I am from Edmonton/Ft.McMurray, Alberta… Yes I live in two places hahah.
ummaryam99 - what part of the states do you live in? New York, has cheap flights going out usually… Check out orbitz.com
If I lived in France/Europe, I would probably go every second month.
me tooooo, stealth!
wait, i do live in europe 
inchallah one day!!
Texas, even though my city does have the second largest international airport in the states, is faaaaar away from Morocco. It is expensive, what with 99 Maryams tagging along, too. Whew!..Oh, and since somebody brought up Dr. Seuss, let me give you guys a partial-reading-from-memory of a short story he wrote… "Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave had 21 sons, and she named them all Dave? Well, she did, and it wasn’t a smart thing to do, because now when she wants one and calls out, ‘You Hoo! Come in to the house, Dave!’ she doesn’t get one; all 21 Dave’s of hers come on the run…
can see 21 daves running my way
i’m scared LOL
trampeeeeeeeeeeeeedeee!!