fo9ach فوقاش
Moroccan Darija · adverb
“fo9ach” (فوقاش) is an adverb in Moroccan Darija meaning when? (question).
Meanings
- when? (question)
- when (indirect question)
Usage
Fo9ach is the usual question word for asking the time of an action: "when?". It goes at the start of the sentence, as in fo9ach ghadi tji ? "when are you coming?". It is also used in indirect questions: ma 3reftch fo9ach "I don't know when". It is a contraction of f w9t ach, literally "at what time". The longer variant fw9tach also exists. Note: it is not the "when" of temporal clauses. For "when I arrived", say mlli wselt or f w9t ma wselt, not fo9ach.
Example
فوقاش مشيتي لتما
fo9ach mchiti ltma
“When did you go there?”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “fo9ach” but also “fou9ach”, “foqach”, “fogach” and “fo9ash”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 9 is qaf (ق), a k pronounced at the back of the throat.
Type “fo9ach” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “when? at what time?”; “since when (with men)”: fouqach in Algerian.