Linking words and connectors in Algerian Arabic

This is the largest page in the library and probably the most underrated. Connectors are the words that turn separate sentences into speech: but, because, so, anyway, even so, in that case. They carry no information of their own, which is why learners skip them, and they are exactly what separates somebody who can produce sentences from somebody who can hold a conversation.

Five hundred and fourteen entries, including a great many of the short fixed phrases that Algerians use to keep talk moving: I know, I have no idea, what are you doing, any news.

The fillers are doing real work

3labali, I know, and ma 3labalish, I have no idea, are on this page and they are among the most useful things on the site. So are the phrases for hang on, go on, and really. They buy you the two seconds you need to think, they show the other person you are still with them, and their absence is one of the loudest signs that somebody is translating in their head. Learn six of them and use them shamelessly.

Because is worth more than most nouns

The words that attach a reason to a statement do more for your fluency than almost anything else you could learn. They double the length of every sentence you can produce and they make you sound like you are explaining rather than reciting. If you take one category off this page, take this one.

Fixed phrases are single items

A good deal of what is here is not a word but a chunk: several words that always travel together and are said as one. Learn them that way, as one item, without pulling them apart to see how they work. Pulling them apart is a grammar exercise; using them whole is speaking. There is time for the first later.

What to do with this page

This page is too big to work through. Do not try. Take twenty items: six fillers, six connectors of reason, four of contrast, four of sequence. Write them on one sheet. Then take any five sentences you can already say and join them with these. You will hear the difference in your own speech immediately, which is unusual for any single hour of language study.

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