Talking about the weather in Algerian Darija

The weather is the smallest page here, fifty five sentences, and it is the one to start with if you have never had a conversation in Darija. It is the safest possible first exchange: everybody agrees about the weather, nobody minds if you get it slightly wrong, and it happens several times a day.

الجو بارد, the weather is cold. الجو سخون, hot. الدنيا صافية, it is clear. الدنيا مغيّمة, cloudy. Four sentences and you can already say something true to anybody.

Two words carry the whole page

Notice that these sentences are built on الجو and الدنيا, which between them start most of what you will hear about the weather. Learn those two openings and the page becomes a short list of endings to swap in and out. That is a very small amount of memorising for a very large amount of usable speech.

It is the standard opening move

In Algeria as anywhere, a remark about the weather is how you begin with somebody you do not know, or fill the pause after a greeting before you get to the point. That makes it the ideal thing to have automatic: you will use it as a bridge into every other conversation on this site.

Say it, do not just read it

Because these are so short, learners tend to read them, nod and move on, and then find they cannot produce them at speed when a neighbour says something first. Fifty five sentences is small enough that you can say every one of them out loud in ten minutes. Do that twice and the page is yours.

What to do with this page

Learn four: hot, cold, clear, and one more you like. Say them out loud with the recordings. Then use one tomorrow, first, before the other person says anything. Starting the exchange rather than answering it is a different skill and this is the easiest place in the whole library to practise it.

3 phrases pour commencer