How Derja is written here
الكتابةArabic has sounds English has no letter for. Algerians solve it with digits, and so does this site: 7, 9 and 3 are letters, not numbers.
Nobody invented this for this website. It is what people already type to each other in messages, so learning it here means you can read what an Algerian actually writes. Every word below is one from the library.
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7 ح
A hard h, from the throat. Like breathing on a cold window, but tighter.
صح sa7 right
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9 ق
A k made far back, almost swallowed. Not the English q in queen.
لقى l9a to find
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3 ع
The sound with no English cousin at all. A tightening in the throat, then the vowel.
عين 3in eye, also a spring of water
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gh غ
Like a French r, or gargling. The voiced pair of kh.
غير ghir Only, just
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kh خ
The ch in Scottish loch, or German Bach.
ختي khti My sister
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sh ش
The sh in shoe. Nothing surprising.
واش wesh what
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dh ذ
The th in this, not the th in think.
ذكي dhaki clever
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S ص
A heavy s. The whole mouth drops and the vowel beside it darkens.
صح sa7 right
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D ض
A heavy d, the same way.
ضو dou light
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T ط
A heavy t, the same way.
طوپ top Top, excellent
Two other things worth knowing
The vowels are short and there are not many of them. Derja has worn the long Arabic vowels down, which is why words look shorter written out than you expect. Where a vowel is barely there at all we write e: kteb, shreb, dkhel.
An o is an o. We write ketbo, not ketbu. The u spelling comes from English habits and it makes people say the ending wrong.
A capital letter is a heavy letter. S, D and T are not the same sounds as s, d and t. They are said with the tongue lower and the mouth fuller, and they drag the vowel next to them down with them. This is the one that takes longest to hear, and the course spends a whole unit on it.