Learning Arabic

It's a rather interesting experience to try and learn Arabic in Morocco. To understand why, you must first understand that all Arabic is not the same. There is Media Arabic (called Modern Standard Arabic or Fus-Ha), there is classic Arabic for religious and literary stuff and then there are numerous dialects, called Dareeja. Confused? Good, because so am I.

Essentially I am here learning a language that most people can read, most can understand, but nobody speaks. The closest analogy I can think of is if you imagined someone coming up to you in the US and speaking in Biblical or Shakespearian English. So I'm learning FusHa but everyone here speaks Dareeja and/or French. And while some words are similar, many are not. For example, the word 'crazy' is "maazshnoon" in FusHa but "aHmak" in Dareeja.

But luckily the people here are very nice and most are willing to help you learn new words and can usually understand what I'm saying in FusHa. After three weeks I've learned the alphabet but my vocabulary is still very limited. So it's kind of fun because it's usually just like a big game of charades for me over here. Except for one place. There is a market nearby with a lot of fruit/vegetable and meat vendors where you can get pretty much everything you need. But my favorite is the chicken guy. He is one of the nicest people I've met over here and for some reason I have mad Arabic skills when I'm at his shop. It started one day when I was waiting in line and there was a young child in front of me with his mother. I had just learned a new phrase a couple days ago but had yet found a place to use it. The phrase is "Tbaark Allah" which basically just means may God protect you/him/her and is usually used for precious things and babies. So I practiced it a few times in my head then turned to the mother and said "Tbaark Allah" and you would have thought I had recited half the Koran. I guess they weren't used to seeing bald headed westerners speaking Arabic. Unfortunately this was pretty much all I knew how to say. But between that and my hello and thank you (which I had also just practiced) they thought I could speak Arabic very well. haha....if only they knew. But it paid off because every time I go there he smiles and says some things in Arabic to which I usually reply with whatever I can think of off the top of my head.

So my goal is that by the time I leave here I'd like to be able to say something other than hello and nisf kilo dajezj (1/2 kilo of chicken). In sha Allah.