Darija grammar: the rules that actually build sentences

Darija grammar carries a reputation it inherited from Modern Standard Arabic and does not deserve: pages of verb tables, case endings, dual forms, ten derived patterns. Darija dropped most of that. What is left is a compact machine for spoken conversation, small enough to see the whole of in an afternoon, which leaves the rest of your time for vocabulary.

Three things account for most of the early surprise. There is no verb “to be” in the present tense, so Ana mghribi is a complete sentence, “I am Moroccan”, with no verb in it at all. Negation wraps the verb instead of preceding it: the ma...sh sandwich turns Ka-nakul, “I eat”, into ma-ka-nakulsh, “I don't eat”, and the same wrap works in every tense. And there is no verb for “to have” either, because possession runs through a preposition, so “I have money” comes out as 3end-i floos.

Take the fifteen core rules first. They are ordered so each one leans on the last, and by the end of them you can assemble most of what an ordinary day asks of you. Then drill verbs: fifteen verbs in the past, present and imperative carry the bulk of normal conversation, and the past tense is the easier half to build, because it is a root plus a suffix with very little irregularity.

Numbers deserve a session of their own. Moroccans count in Arabic up to ten and switch to French above it, which is practical, inconsistent, and not something you can reason your way into. You just learn where the seam falls.

Several Darija consonants do not exist in English or French, and they are the difference between being understood the first time and repeating yourself twice. In writing, Moroccans get around them with digits: 3, 7 and 9 stand in for sounds the Latin alphabet has no letter for, which is why they turn up in the middle of words. The pronunciation guide below takes each sound in turn and gives you words to practise it on.

If you are still deciding, the two comparison guides below were written for that question. The short version: the two share an alphabet and a stock of roots, then diverge almost everywhere else, including in the vocabulary you would want in your first hour in Morocco. Standard Arabic will not carry you through a Casablanca taxi ride, and Darija will not carry you through a newspaper editorial. Pick the one that matches what you want to do, and do not treat Standard Arabic as a prerequisite, because it is not one.

Each guide below is a full article with tables and worked examples. If you would rather hear the grammar in use than read about it, lesson 1 is free and opens without an account.