Some darija translation questions! "That looks familiar " AND/OR " I knew it looked familiar " context: you're driving through a place you think you recognize or someone shows you a picture of a place

مريم Meryem

Some darija translation questions! "That looks familiar " AND/OR " I knew it looked familiar " context: you're driving through a place you think you recognize or someone shows you a picture of a place and you think you recognize it. They tell you the name of the place and you say, "ah! of course! I knew it looked familiar! " emphasizing that you know the place and should've recognized it right away! How to express this idea in Moroccan Arabic? Thanks!

Jan 16, 2016 10:11 PM

Answers · 5

Salam Maryam, It was a good idea to provide such a well defined context for those 2 phrases. Here is what I would say: ** That looks familiar : بـحـال إلى فايت دايـز من هنا / بـحـال إلى عـارف هاد بلاصـة ** ah! of course! I knew it looked familiar! : قـلت نـيـت عــارف هاد الـبـلاصـة / قـلـت نـيـت فـايت كـنـت تم In the last phrase, the letter (ق) is usually pronounced like (g) in the word (Go), but in some regions it is pronounced as in MSA. So this was just my suggestion, there are probably many ways you can translate those phrases depending on which region the speaker is from, but the phrases I provided are very commonly used throughout Morocco. Good luck

January 17, 2016

I don't know Moroccan dialect well, so I will translate it in Arabic Fusha until some Moroccans see that post: أها! إنَّ هذا المكان يبدو مألوفًا، بالطبع أعرفه.

January 17, 2016

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