Sounds You Already Know

Lesson objective

In this lesson, you will learn the transcription characters that represent sounds similar to English sounds.

Familiar sounds

Most Moroccan Arabic consonants are similar to sounds found in English, and many Darija vowels are similar to English vowels too. However, a character may not always have the pronunciation an English speaker expects — so it is worth learning the sound connected to each transcription character below.

Vowels

• a — like the vowel in father, or sometimes like the vowel in mad
• e — like the short e in met (used only occasionally, mainly to avoid confusion with a)
• i — like the long ee in meet
• o — like the long o in bone (mostly found in French loanwords)
• u — like the long oo in food

Consonants

Most consonants match their normal English sound: b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, v, w, y, z, plus g as in go and h as in hi. A few need special attention:

• j — like the sound in the middle of pleasure (sometimes written “zh”)
• r — a short flap, similar to a Spanish r, not the normal English r
• š — like sh in she

Vowel combinations

• ay — like ay in say
• au — like ow in cow
• iu — like “ee-you” in see you later