ssalamu 'lekum
I am trying to understand and speak Moroccan Arabic but I keep having difficulty with some words that my friend will send for me to try and translate - I have received a text which says
“Shukran 3la 3ozoma” - I know that Shukran means Thank you but I am confused at the remainder of the message
Sorry to be a luzhe but this way I can update my personal dictionary
Wa 3alaykom ssalam :).
It’s okay to ask, this is what the forum is for. You are not taking anyone’s time against their will, so you can relax about that.
3ozoma (which we mentioned on the forum just recently) is not a Moroccan word in fact, but it means invitation. The Moroccan word for 3ozoma is 3rada. You can go ahead and tease your friend for not using a 100% Moroccan word ;).
By the way, l3rada is most often an invitation to eat… but it can be something else as well.
Now it’s your turn: What’s a luzhe?
It should mean pain
In English?
it should mean sorry to be a nuisance
LOL no, I meant if the word luzhe was an English word. 
According to my dictionary it is a Moroccan word:^^:
What dictionary is that?
Do you have it written in Arabic letters as well?
The only close word I can think of is lôz = almonds. :hap:
It’s not the Harrell dictionary there is muSiba or nuisance.
If we try to pronounce luzhe, in other word it’s loser
but why he can say( sorry to be a loser)?.. It doesn’t make any sence hun???
luzhe’ appears in the Lonely Planet dictionary as pain
Oh my God! Now I see what you mean!
It’s that apostrophe that you added at the end that gave me a hint! I already saw this transcription elsewhere: Some use zh for what we use often as j, to differentiate it from the English j, prunounced as dj. [J in Darija transcription stands for the sound of s in the word pleasure]
Anyhow, the word is: lôj3 = [large]???[/large].
The apostrophe in your word stands for the letter 3ayn. Basically published books do not use any numbers to transcribe letters. I even wonder if the use of numbers in transcription had even started at the time.
And hey, we actually don’t use this word in this context, “being a pain” doesn’t mean much in Darija. You can say “mâ bgîtsh nSdd3k, walakin…” = “I don’t want to bother you, but…”, followed by request.
I hope this clears it up :).
By the way, it was a good thing to try and incorporate words you learn even in an English paragraph. Haven’t you done that, we wouldn’t have had this discussion :).
Wait a minute! I still didn’t get it yet
if it’s the word luzhe mean loj3, so what Tomcaffe makes him to say Sorry to be a luzhe?:huh:
In English we say, “I hate to be a pain, but…” and then make a request which we intuitively know will be sort of unwelcome. If Tomcaffe said something like, “I’m sorry to be luzhe.”…what he meant was just what Simply Moroccan said above. That is, we literally use the word for pain, i.e. alam, or al awja’3 (diyal al wiladah, zaamah) as a way of excusing ourselves for, well, being a pain in the neck. Clear as mud, eh?