The house and everyday things in Algerian Darija

The objects in the room you are standing in are the best vocabulary any beginner can have, because you can practise them without another person and without leaving the house. Point at the door, say باب. Point at the chair, say كرسي. It sounds childish and it works, which is why children do it.

This page has the rooms, the furniture and the everyday objects, plus the words you need to say where something is and what state it is in. A hundred and fifty two entries covering the whole of an ordinary home.

Nouns are cheap, position is not

Knowing the word for chair is a small thing. Being able to say the chair is behind the door, bring the one on the left, it is on top of the cupboard: that is what makes the noun useful, and it needs the position words that live on this page and on the page about how the language is put together. Learn them together. A room full of nouns you cannot arrange is not much use.

Words for the state of things

قديم for old, and the words for broken, clean, full, empty. These come up constantly in a house and in any conversation about a flat, a car or a phone. They also transfer everywhere: the word you learn here for old will serve you in a shop, in a garage and in a story about your childhood.

This is where French shows up

A number of household and technical words in everyday Algerian speech come from French, pronounced the Algerian way. You will meet more of them on the French words page in this library. Do not treat them as cheating or as bad Darija. They are simply what people say, and refusing to use them in favour of a more classical word is a good way to sound like a broadcast rather than a person.

What to do with this page

Walk round your home with this page open and name things out loud until you run out of things. Then do the harder version: for each object say one full sentence about where it is or what state it is in. Twenty objects, twenty sentences, and you have practised nouns, position and adjectives together in twenty minutes without speaking to anybody.

20 mots pour commencer