queenofdarija

[queenofdarija]

marhaban to queen of darija

Marhaban bikum, and welcome to the queen of darija blog where we will be learning the Moroccan dialect of Arabic together in shaa’ allah.

Before starting to learn any of the words, I will introduce you to the transcription system that we will use for the Arabic equivalent. There are several ways of transcribing the Arabic letters into its Latin equivalents, but this particular one is a standard one, used by the American Peace Corps in their textbooks. 

a

b the normal English sound /b/

d the normal English sound /d/

e the short “e” sound /e/ as in “met” (this transcription character is not used often, only when confusion would be caused by using the transcription character “a”)

f the normal English sound /f/

g the normal English sound /g/ as in “go”

h the normal English sound /h/ as in “hi.”

i the long “ee” sound /ē/ as in “meet”

j the /zh/ sound represented by the „s‟ in “pleasure”

k the normal English sound /k/

l the normal English sound /l/

m the normal English sound /m/

n the normal English sound /n/

o the long “o” sound /ō/ as in “bone” (this transcription character is not used often, mainly for French words that have entered Moroccan Arabic)

p the normal English sound /p/

r this is not the normal English “r,” but a “flap” similar to the Spanish “r” 

s the normal English sound /s/

t the normal English sound /t/

u the long “oo” sound /ü/ as in “food”

v the normal English sound /v/

w the normal English sound /w/

y the normal English sound /y/

z the normal English sound /z/

š the normal English sound /sh/ as in “she”

Some vowel combinations

ay the “ay” as in “say”

au the “ow” as in “cow”

iu the “ee you” as in “see you later”

#moroccan arabic #darija #american peace corps #transcription system