I suppose it's no big secret that I have been hoping and hoping and hoping that Matt will want to move us to Morocco. One of the crazy things about being married is apparently you have decide these things together. (Ha ha.) It'll be at least a year before we go (if we go, which it looks like we won't right now, but you never know) and so in the meantime, I figured I might as well try to learn either French or Moroccan Arabic. French is of course the easier to learn, in that it's similar to Spanish and I could find people who speak it. But
Arabic!!! Oh my!!! So I found a few websites that teach you the language (not the Moroccan dialect, which apparently also has a mix of Berber, French, and German words and sounds in it) and did my first lesson today. Do you want to know what I learned?
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This how you write the letter name of the short "U" which is pronounced "damma": ضَمّة
This is how it will look on its own: ُ
This is how it looks with the "S" sound, making the syllable "su": سُ
This is how you elongate it into a long "ooo" sound: و
This is what "su" with a long U sound looks: سُو
This is how you spell "suq" (long u), which means "market." سُوق
This is how you spell "markets", pronounced aswaq (long a on the second syllable): أسْواق
(One must keep in mind that
سُوق is instead written سوق, since it is normal to think as ا،ي،و as elongation letters.).I learned I better stick with French.