Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Wed, February 4, 2004 - 11:33 PMSo Bay, what do you (or anyone else) know about language schools in Morocco? Costs, quality, etc. I'd like to make a stronger effort to learn the language next time I am there. Any audio programs to reccomend? -
-
Unsu...
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Thu, February 5, 2004 - 7:29 AMBay would probably have a better idea than me since she lived there, but I looked into attending the Arabic Language Institiute in Fez at one point. They teach both Modern Standard and Moroccan, and if I remember correctly, they have 3 and 6 week courses, and you can stay at the school, with a family, or they can help you find an apartment. I'm not sure if they have a website, but I have an email address and fax number if you are interested.
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Thu, February 5, 2004 - 7:41 AMi studied for 3 wks at ALIF (arabic language institute in fes)and the courses are decent but honestly i was disappointed--since derija is not typically written, there were not really any structured ways of teaching. which is a shame since the language is really very logical at least in the early stages. i'm also not a huge fan of fes as a city.
essaouira has a program that started this past fall that is less intensive but i think 10 weeks or so. i don't know anybody who has done it but i would jump at any opportunity to spend 10 weeks in essaouira with a small obligation to keep me a little busy.
if you can find a peace corps book, that's the best i've seen as far as moroccan vocab and it's in arabic not transliterated--HUGE difference in learning to properly pronounce things. -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Fri, September 17, 2004 - 8:16 PMDoes anyone know how to get a copy of the Peace Corps books? I do much better learning arabic and derija if I can see it written in arabic...transliterations bug me because I have to learn that author's system whereas seeing in it arabic I know exactly how the letter should be pronounced.
My pillow dictionary isn't much help...sigh.
-
-
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Thu, February 5, 2004 - 7:30 AMknkellem shuiya derija. i'd love to practice too but i have the worst time with the phonetic spelling--what little i remember i learned using the standard arabic alphabet--huge difference since our alphabet just does not represent the sounds at all. -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Fri, February 13, 2004 - 3:26 PMI actually taught at ALIF for two years - they have English programs as well as Arabic ones. Their focus is primarily on Fous'ha, not Moroccan derrija, since, as mentioned, derrija is a colloquial (unwritten) language, and for sociopolitical reasons generally not considered a real language (or even a stable dialect) by its native speakers. Being a linguist, I could rail against this for hours, but I'll refrain for now.
There really is no good way to learn a language from CDs or books - as far as I know, there is only one codified Moroccan-English dictionary available in primary press, but it's unfortunately done in transcription, and not in Arabic script, so you have to familiarize yourself with their orthographic system before it makes any sense at all. The courses at ALIF are helpful, but really the best way is to go there, learn the rudimentary basics in the classroom, then find a way to live there for a while and use the daily contact experience as your school. Nothing like total immersion to motivate learning!
Stacey - most of the sounds are pretty similar to English - use "gh" for the voiced uvular fricative, the "ghain" sound that comes after the [b] in "bghit" (I want). Capital H can indicate the heavy h sound, "zh" for the sound in words like "hazha" (thing), although some choose to use "j" (haja). If you want to ramble some Arabic at each other, we could probably figure out what the other was saying...
bghit naawed maa shiwahed - aandi shi sahaabi maghrebiyin fe San Francisco, walakin tnsken fe Portland daba, wa makeinsh lnaas bzef henaya li kizhaau men lmaghreb. Wa antina? Foqash anti fe Fes, wa shhaal lwuqt tmma? -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Thu, February 26, 2004 - 3:36 PMdrst larabia fe fes walakin, "i preferred" essaouira. deba, ana fe arizona. makeinsh bezf lmaghrebi fe arizona. allesh ktdarst larabia?
i love morocco with all my heart, and i love derrija, but i honestly don't think it's a good country to learn a language in--they all speak too many damn languages. do you think that arabic is a logical language? what little i began to learn regarding the structure of words (actually using a root to form verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc) made complete sense to me but they never taught it in my cma class at alif--i had to learn from my friends. -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Thu, February 26, 2004 - 5:27 PMis fe supposed to be pronounced fee as in standard arabic, or more like fay?
in a cluster like ktdarst, are there some schwas breaking it up? -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Fri, February 27, 2004 - 7:42 AMi think this depends on where you are. accents, etc, but i think it's not quite either; i pronounce it closer to "fay" but the thing is it's a short vowel. maybe bay can offer a better explanation (and correct me if i'm wrong) -
-
Re: ktkellem derrija? Kein shi wahed?
Sat, February 28, 2004 - 10:28 PMHmmm....how familiar with the IPA are you? The fe is like "the" in English - when it stands alone, we say "thee" (rhymes with "we,") but in rapid speech when connected to another following syllable, it becomes shortened to "fe" more like f + schwa, as our "the" does - vowel reduction allowed only in closed syllables, blah blah blah.
Arabic has consonant clusters that we don't have, although to our ears, things like ktkellem will have more syllables than they do for a native Arabic speaker. No schwas.
-
-
-
-
-