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Moroccan Arabic resources?

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 6:29 pm
by Nooj
Hey, I recently arrived in Morocco and will live here for about a year. My French is proving alot less useful than I thought even within the cities. For example in working class neighbourhoods the languages I overwhelming hear are Arabic and Berber languages. It's all good to know that French is taught in the school system but a lot of people don't go to school or have forgotten everything once they leave.

I thought there'd be more language material in moroccan arabic here than in Spain and i am sadly disappointed. So far I'm using the peace corps manual and that works well for some stuff, but I'm in desperate need of other resources to help this immersion thing really work well.

Any recommendations?

Re: Moroccan Arabic resources?

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:20 pm
by Arzena
Hi Nooj, I recently returned from a year in Morocco. I came in with a background in Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic, do you have background knowledge of Arabic?

What are you looking for? I don't know that many resources for learning specifically Moroccan Arabic, alas. It is terribly underserved. Here's a link to a blog that has good materials on Moroccan Arabic: https://armchairarabist.blogspot.co.uk/

I know you are in Morocco, so ordering books off Amazon will be hard if not impossible. For when you return to Europe/America here are two books that I've found helpful: 1) a textbook that I used in university http://amzn.to/2bOk8Bd and 2) a grammar that I used in my spare time http://amzn.to/2bZfwsD

Re: Moroccan Arabic resources?

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 5:32 am
by Nooj
Hi Arzena, I have no background in Arabic but I did study Persian, so I have familiarity with the Arabic writing system (with its Persian modifications of course).

Thank you for the website and the books. When I lived in Spain I noticed there were lots of books in French and Spanish for learning darija but at that time I wasn't interested - now I'm kicking myself for not having made copies.

Maybe I can convince my friends when they come in a visit to bring me these books.