What is your familiarity with Arabic or Darija?

Everyone begins at the same place. This question is purely to satisfy our curiosity and understand who we are reaching.

• Zero experience. I'm here to learn from scratch.
• I know a little! Assalamu alaykum! Shukran! Labass!
• I took a Beginner course…wa7ed, juj…rb–…five years ago.
• I consider myself Intermediate, but don’t ask me to haggle at the suq.
• Not to brag, but I’m pretty Advanced. Next question, yallah

What’s your main goal?

• Travel to Morocco, hopefully make a local smile when I ask Kidayr/a? Instead of ça va?
• I want to speak with family/friends/others in their native language.
• My research, job, school, and/or future career goals would benefit from learning Darija.
• I’m a language collector. This is the next stop on my polyglot train. Choo-choo.
• No goal. Just curious, bored, maybe the mixture of the two.
• Other

Before your first lesson

Darija is the daily language spoken by 90% of Moroccans. It blends Classical Arabic with influences from Amazigh (Berber), French, and Spanish. Some of Darija’s sounds and letters don’t exist in English, but are core aspects of successful pronunciation and reading.

Here’s how to read the six sounds you will encounter the most.

The number 7

7 stands for ح (ḥāʾ) — a strong “h” from the throat. Like breathing on glasses to fog them. You’ll see it in words like 7na (we) and bch7al (how much?).

The number 3

3 stands for ع (ʿayn) — a catch in the throat, like the pause in “uh-oh.” You’ll see it in 3arbiya (Arabic) and m3a (with).

The number 9

9 stands for ق (q) — a clicky “k” sound made deep in the throat. You’ll see it in 9wha (coffee) and su9 (market).

The letters kh

kh is خ (khāʾ) — like the “ch” in Scottish “loch” or German “Bach.” You’ll see it in khuya (my brother) and skhun (warm).

The letters gh

gh is غ (ghayn) — a raspy “g” from the throat, like the French “r” in “Paris.” You’ll see it in ghir (just) and sghir (small).

Now with that out of the way,

Time to talk logistics.

You can review 7, 3, 9, kh, and gh anytime on the About page.

SRS is all about patience and perseverance for long-term retention. We've created a special algorithm to calculate how often you review words, with them appearing less and less often the closer you are to burning them into your memory.

Lessons — Start here. Learn 8 new words and pass the quiz. All 8 enter your review queue for tomorrow.

Reviews — Words come back on a schedule. Keep your queue under 16 and new words stay available each day.

Levels — We've split our massive bank of words into levels. From the most common words to the least, the more you learn, the higher level you climb. You know the drill.

Take your time, be consistent, and the words will stick. As the Darija idiom goes, Li zerbo matu. People who rushed are dead ;)

Dkhul (Come in). Welcome to our Riad.