Communicating in Morocco

Hi!

I'm heading to morocco at the end of the year. I'm finding resources for Darija really hard to come by. Because I'm travelling alone for some of my trip it's really important that I can communicate well. Moreover it's just plain rude to rock up and expect people to speak with me in English (especially because the New Zealand accent is a beast of it's own that only loosely resembles English). Can anyone recommend some good resources, key phrases (preferred because I'm lazy) or even television shows that might help? In fact, any general advise for a young(ish) female traveller heading to Morocco solo would be very much appreciated :) Cheers!

Many of those who work in the tourist industry in Morocco can communicate in English. If you plan on sticking to places that are popular with foreign tourists, you shouldn't have any problem getting by in English.

Otherwise, do you have any French or Spanish? French is the most widely spoken European language in Morocco, and French speakers are found all over the country, even in very remote places. Certainly not everyone in a mountain village in Morocco will speak French, but there may well be a French speaker or two around. Spanish is useful in certain regions of the country, specifically the very north as well as Western Sahara.

In regards to Arabic... I don't really speak any Arabic myself, so don't know what I'm talking about, but I suspect that trying to learn a bit of Standard Arabic - which is understood and used throughout the entire Arab world, and presumably has lots of learning material for it - would be more useful than trying to pick up Moroccan dialect. The most useful phrase is perhaps "la shukran", which means "No thanks", and which you will likely have plenty of opportunity to use in Morocco. You might also want to try and learn how to read Arabic (including the numerals) before you go, a skill that will certainly be very handy.

Hi!

Thank you for your response I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately I don't speak any French or Spanish, only English, Japanese and a little Swedish which won't be of much help I'm afraid.
I'm more wanting to learn Moroccan Arabic out of courtesy as I'm going to be a guest in their country. I wonder if standard Arabic or French would be more readily understood? Thank you again.

Learn to say 'hello', 'please', 'thank you' and 'goodbye' in either French or Arabic. These are basic courtesies. Pick whichever language you find easier to learn, and whichever you are likely to use again in future.

And as suggested above learn how to say a polite but firm 'no, thank you!' as well. Because you are a solo female, you will need to use this a lot.

My understanding is that Moroccan Arabic is basically a dialect of Arabic in general, perhaps similar to Tohoku-ben and standard Japanese, say. Standard Arabic is certainly much more widely understood in Morocco than French, but you can get by with French.

Note that languages in Morocco are actually a little more complicated: many Moroccans speak a Berber language as their mother tongue, and not Arabic at all. You're certainly not going to offend anyone with basic (standard) Arabic words, and I imagine greetings, numbers, and the like are the same anyway.

Learning Moroccan Arabic is generally something done only if one is spending a long time living in the country. If you are just visiting as a backpacker, then get a French phrasebook and use that. French is not universally understood – there are plenty of uneducated Moroccans who don’t speak it – but it is used widely enough that a foreign tourist can rely on it. Plus, as an English speaker you will find French much easier to pronounce in a way that the locals understand you than Arabic with its laryngeal consonants and the slippery vowels of Moroccan Arabic.

My understanding is that Moroccan Arabic is basically a dialect of Arabic in general, perhaps similar to Tohoku-ben and standard Japanese

The Arabic "dialects" are very much separate languages and differ from each other more than any of the Japanese dialects. Moroccan Arabic is not mutually intelligible with Modern Standard Arabic or any spoken dialect east of Tunisia. Furthermore, many cosmopolitan Moroccans are more comfortable with French than MSA because most publications in Morocco are in French, not MSA. If one wanted to try to get by with Arabic, Egyptian Arabic might be more welcome than MSA.

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