newcomer!

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#1

hi everyone, salaam.

today is my first day on this website and i LOVE it!
the very first time i heard of darija was a couple years ago in the middle of college when i made friends with a few moroccans living in my city. they were great fun and my friendships with them really opened my eyes to the rest of the world!
i recently finished college, and moved back closer to my hometown for a job. this area is very small and there are very few arabic people living here. But i met two of them right away after i moved back–because i work with them! they are siblings (brother and sister) from morocco. i was sad to leave my moroccan friends in the city, so i was really excited to meet others here at work. since starting work, i’ve become quite close with them both, and i’m actually now dating the guy.
i hear them talking together alot and i’ve asked them to help teach me some arabic. they started out trying to teach me MSA (just so i could understand/be understood universally), but really i’ve picked up more darija just from everyday conversations with them and from my friends back in college.
i’m more interested in darija, anyway, because i would love to live and work in morocco. i hope to go to medical school in the near future (i am now making applications to start in August 2009). i want to learn enough darija (and MSA) so i can eventually do some work in morocco for women’s healthcare.
anyway, because i’m in a small town, i don’t have many resources except the internet (our town library is really limited and has NO arabic stuff, and there are no local universities that teach arabic.). if any of you have any suggestions to help me learn, i’d appreciate all the help i can get!

thank you to simply moroccan because this site is such a great idea and great resource for people like me!

#2

and, sorry, because i always write too much. probably more than you wanted to know!

#3

Salaam! :welcome:
I’m new here and i loved this forum as well!

#4

Welcome to SpeakMoroccan, magnolia :). I am glad that you like the website and forum. Hopefully you’ll improve your Darija with us, I noticed that you’re aleady doing good, you are even familiar with the transcription!
My advice? Since you have friends with whom you can practice pronunciation in real life, then try to grasp as much vocabulary as you can, and work on making sentences. There are a few exercises in the forum that you can start with. Maybe in the future we can extend the learning activities.
And oh, don’t worry about the length of your posts, I enjoyed reading them :). Feel free to write as much as you want, and about anything.

Go for Darija! So in the future if you meet other Arab people (apart from Algerians and Tunisians) who can not understand you, stare at them with surprise and tell them “Shame on you! You don’t understand Arabic”, and stand up for Darija :D.

#5

Welcome, Hiba! I like your stories, it is always interesting to know why other people want to learn darija.
Meet you on the forum!

#6

[quote=Marilyn]Welcome, Hiba! I like your stories, it is always interesting to know why other people want to learn darija.
Meet you on the forum![/quote]
Marilyn, it’s Magnolia here :). Hiba is the Jordanian girl :).

#7

1000 x sorry!

#8

HEYYYYYYYYYY!!!
Welcome to the forum!!!
hope u enjoy!!
see ya!!

#9

Mr7ba bik Magnolia!

And don’t worry, you just read our minds and answered our question before we even asked! :smiley: People are generally very curious to know why others are learning their language. You perfectly satisfied our curiosity!

From which cities are your Moroccan friends? All those you’ve known so far.