RABAT, Morocco — After studying Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) for three years at the university level, I thought I was ready to study in Morocco. I also study French, so that would work in the case of an Arabic meltdown. The one thing I felt linguistically unprepared for was Darija — colloquial Moroccan Arabic. Before I left, I thought it couldn’t be that hard, right?

Wrong. After a few days of orientation, we started learning “survival” Darija. I learned things like hello, goodbye, where I’m from, and what my name is. It felt like I was back in beginning Arabic. A few class sessions later, I learned things like how to order in a restaurant, how to tell my host mom I’m full, and how to tell a taxi to take me somewhere. While I had spoken MSA several times and was used to the sounds and the pronounciations, the Darija felt weird on my tongue. It was like they kept the consonants, but threw the vowels out the window—cottony “ma-f’hemptsh” meaning “I don’t understand.” However, I knew I would need to use Darija to talk to the locals—to order a tagine, tell my host mom the food is good, and bargain at the souk.

My first real success came on Saturday around noon. Some friends and I were going to take a bus to a nearby beach. I approached a man selling books and magazines, all in Arabic or French, and asked him where to wait for bus 33. In Darija. We waited for the bus and surely enough, it came.

Later that evening, when we returned from the beach, my roommate and I were going to take a taxi back to our home stay. I had agreed before to pay the eight or nine dirhams, since she’d paid for the way there. When we got to our house, I pulled out my 50 bill and asked, in my best Darija, “do you have change?” He did, and we got out of the cab.

After these two exchanges, I felt very proud of my baby steps. If I could do this, I could learn more, and hopefully have an all-Darija conversation with my host family—no broken French or translations from my English-speaking host-sister.