Daily Routines and the Present Tense

Lesson objective

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• talk about daily activities in the present tense
• use one verb after another
• give commands

Meaning of the present tense

In Darija, the present tense can describe two types of actions.

Habitual action

An action that happens regularly — for example: I eat couscous every Friday.

Progressive action

An action happening now — for example: I am eating couscous now.

For a small number of verbs, the present tense expresses only habitual actions.

Prefixes and suffixes

The past tense mainly uses endings. The present tense uses prefixes at the beginning, and sometimes suffixes at the end.

The present-tense prefix contains ka- and one of these letters: n, t, y. The suffix -i or -u may also be added.