TAC - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-04, 6:09

voron wrote:
Saim wrote:I used to think like this but lately I've been using Memrise a whole lot. I have, like, 8 different decks and am using all of them every day. Dunno what happened.

I forgot to ask: where do you find words that you add to Memrise? Are they from songs, articles, textbooks you learn from, or anywhere else?


Depends. For Urdu, it's mostly the news (especially BBC Urdu).
For Arabic (Syrian Colloquial Arabic, a functional Course) and Malay (Routledge Colloquial Malay), it's text books.
For Punjabi, mostly movies.
For Hebrew it's journalistic texts (ynet) or words I got from my tutor.
For Hungarian it's either the news (Vajdaság Ma) or a text book (Jó szórakozást magyarul).
For Basque, I was working on a text book that I bought but it seems it's a bit harder than I expected so I might go back to ikasten (online course).

It depends on where I'm at in the language and what kind of vocabulary I'm focusing on. The goal for the beginner's languages is to expose myself to the course material even when I can't be bothered to open up the courses themselves, whereas at intermediate level (Hebrew, Hungarian) it's to make sure I'm still learning at least something even though I can't focus on them right now. For Urdu the goal is understanding the news.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby eskandar » 2016-11-04, 6:11

voron wrote:Thanks! Also, thanks for your recommendation about the Clozemaster. Honestly I still have problems with using the Arabic keyboard layout, so this may be something to help me develop this skill.

There's also a multiple-choice option on Clozemaster (so you don't need to type), but it's kind of too easy. You could install a phonetic keyboard for Arabic. I have one that I use (which was actually developed by Unilang user alijsh, who's no longer active here) where you type 'b' for ب , etc., and I can type pretty quickly and effortlessly with it.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-04, 7:43

Wouldn't it be better to just learn the layout that comes with your computer? Put up the On-screen Keyboard whenever you can't remember where a letter is, that's how I did it.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby eskandar » 2016-11-04, 8:28

Why would it be better per se? I see them as two different strategies to accomplish the same thing, and in my opinion using the phonetic keyboard is the easier/quicker strategy.
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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-04, 9:44

Yeah, I guess so. I guess it's just when I started I had the paranoia that I'd end up in an internet café or using someone else's computer and wouldn't be able to type because I'm not used to the layout. :lol:

(Also I legitimately enjoy the fact that I'm used to several keyboard layouts, but that's after the fact.)

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-04, 15:25

Saim wrote:Yeah, I guess so. I guess it's just when I started I had the paranoia that I'd end up in an internet café or using someone else's computer and wouldn't be able to type because I'm not used to the layout. :lol:

(Also I legitimately enjoy the fact that I'm used to several keyboard layouts, but that's after the fact.)

These are exactly my arguments too.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-08, 13:52

I've finally surrendered to using Memrise.

[flag=]ar[/flag] I've decided I will do Madinah Arabic books 1,2,3 and create flashcards for all the news words. Book 1 will be a revision for me so I'll aim to complete it in 2 weeks (in reality maybe faster).

Books 2,3, the goal is, complete until the New Year (perhaps a bit ambitious but I'll try).

Progress: 28/30 lessons of Pimsleur 1. Looking forward to Pimsleur 2. It's been quite enjoyable.

Some random phrases that they teach:
I need to go to the bank to withdraw money. - احتاج ان اذهب الى المصرف ان اسحب نقود
I want to stay in Casablanca, because the sea is beautiful there. - اريد ان ابقى بالدار البيضاء لان البحر جميل هناك

While I am at it I'll set my goals for 2017 too. They are few:
1) Be able to converse in MSA
2) Be able to converse in Eastern Arabic
... and resist wanderlust for anything else. :) Seriously. No Hindi, no Punjabi, no Farsi or anything until I'm ok with Arabic.

(Because I had already started watching the Hindi season of a Russian TV show which invites celebrities and teaches them the fundamentals of a new language in 16 lessons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rbJ60UbYVM
).

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-08, 16:04

voron wrote:Seriously. No Hindi, no Punjabi, no Farsi or anything until I'm ok with Arabic.
).


سچ؟ تمہیں یقین ہے؟ :P


I wish I could do the same thing with Arabic, and I was planning to, but now I've put so much effort into Turkish that I'm not sure what exactly to do. :/

Anyway, good luck with Arabic. :D

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-08, 17:08

Saim wrote:
سچ؟ تمہیں یقین ہے؟ :P


Yeah. My life won't be happy until I can speak Arabic. Can't say so for other languages. :P

but now I've put so much effort into Turkish that I'm not sure what exactly to do.

What are the options? Is there a chance you'll go on with Turkish?

Anyway, good luck with Arabic.

Thanks!

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-08, 19:01

voron wrote:Yeah. My life won't be happy until I can speak Arabic. Can't say so for other languages. :P


I can empathise with that. I feel like Arabic is my white whale. It doesn't even seem so hard any more (the fact that I'm relatively good at Urdu and Hebrew now helps immensely) but whenever I decided to focus on Arabic in the past some other language would jump out and distract me. :lol:

What are the options? Is there a chance you'll go on with Turkish?


There's a huge chance. I have loads of Turkish friends and acquaintances and find the country fascinating. And since the latest spike of anti-Islamic backlash in the West my interest in languages has gravitated away from Europe and more towards the Islamic world (go figure). I just know that because of the diglossia to get anywhere in Arabic requires focus, and I'm not sure how much I can focus with Turkish tagging along... the thing is that long-term I can see myself getting a lot out of Arabic but medium-term Turkish is definitely more accessible.

By the way,


voron wrote:While I am at it I'll set my goals for 2017 too. They are few:
1) Be able to converse in MSA
2) Be able to converse in Eastern Arabic


Do you think it'll be difficult to learn to converse in both at the same time? Or will you focus on different topics to prevent cross-over (like focus on politics and stuff for MSA)? What level of reading are you at in MSA?

(Also where did all the other languages in your profile go?)

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby eskandar » 2016-11-09, 4:51

Saim wrote:
voron wrote:While I am at it I'll set my goals for 2017 too. They are few:
1) Be able to converse in MSA
2) Be able to converse in Eastern Arabic


Do you think it'll be difficult to learn to converse in both at the same time? Or will you focus on different topics to prevent cross-over (like focus on politics and stuff for MSA)? What level of reading are you at in MSA?

FWIW, Arabs code-switch between both all the time. I do, too, most of the time when I'm speaking Arabic, unless I'm making a concerted effort to speak in one register exclusively.
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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby Saim » 2016-11-09, 5:39

OK, makes sense. :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-09, 15:30

Saim wrote:Do you think it'll be difficult to learn to converse in both at the same time? Or will you focus on different topics to prevent cross-over (like focus on politics and stuff for MSA)?

I don't care if I mix them. As eskandar says that's what Arabs themselves do all the time.

My perfectionist approach to learning languages changed greatly since I was introduced to Kurdish. It's the first language I learnt where the standard exists only on paper, and learning the real spoken language is impossible without immersion. My standard Kurdish gave my Kurdish friends a lot of giggles, especially my vocabulary, and I've become immune to this kind of reaction.

What level of reading are you at in MSA?

At the moment all my skills in Arabic are pathetic. My vocabulary may be sufficient to read and understand main points of a standard news article but I'm not used to recognizing word shapes on paper (without having to read each letter).

(Also where did all the other languages in your profile go?)

Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic look great together. I don't want to break this symmetry. :)

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-11, 0:18

As I was making my translation to Kurdish of this phrase in the Translations thread
viewtopic.php?p=1062106#p1062106

I remembered this video that was recorded by Kurdish rapper Rezan where he calls to vote for BDP (a pro-Kurdish party in Turkey):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoN7q59yw8

It has these lines:
Dengê xwe bide BDP - Give your voice to BDP
Ji bo çanda xwe, ji bo mafê xwe - For your culture, for your rights
Were dengê xwe bide BDP - Come give your voice to BDP

Xwe is a possessive pronoun identical to Serbian "svoj" (it refers to the subject of the sentence).
dengê xwe bide BDP - daj svoj glas BDP'u

I just hoped this post could make Saim wanderlust for Kurdish at least a bit. (It has two things that he likes, rap and Serbian). :)
Last edited by voron on 2016-11-14, 12:57, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-14, 12:57

[flag=]ar[/flag]
Finished Pimsleur MSA 1.
Did 4/30 lessons of Pimsleur MSA 2.
Revised Madinah Arabic book Level 1.

Memrise is helping a lot.

BTW for other learners who may have not encountered the book yet, Madinah Arabic is downloadable from the author's website here:
https://abdurrahman.org/arabic-learning/madina-arabic/

It is not very useful for learning to converse in MSA, but very useful if you want to read the Quran and other Islamic texts.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-18, 0:36

[flag=]ar[/flag] Learnt this word for "to come":
http://arabicverb.com/conjugate/%D8%A3%D8%AA%D9%8A/AWA

I didn't know it before. I was familiar with جاء only.
جاء exists in dialects too, right? In the song Saim posted - Ma tegi hena - tegi is the same word, isn't it? Does أَتَى exist in dialects?

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby eskandar » 2016-11-22, 6:26

voron wrote:جاء exists in dialects too, right? In the song Saim posted - Ma tegi hena - tegi is the same word, isn't it? Does أَتَى exist in dialects?

Yes, it's the same word - tegi is تيجي (with Egyptian pronunciation). I don't know of أَتَى being used in any dialects.
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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2016-11-22, 14:37

eskandar wrote:
voron wrote:جاء exists in dialects too, right? In the song Saim posted - Ma tegi hena - tegi is the same word, isn't it? Does أَتَى exist in dialects?

Yes, it's the same word - tegi is تيجي (with Egyptian pronunciation). I don't know of أَتَى being used in any dialects.

Thanks eskandar.

Pimsleur teaches interesting constructions with the subjunctive I didn't know before. For example:
My friend will come to visit me - سيأتي صديقي ليزورني
How about we take a taxi - ما رأيك أن نأخذ سيارة أجرة (lit. what your opinion that we take...)
Last edited by voron on 2016-12-05, 14:20, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby voron » 2017-01-06, 13:15

Once again, I have got a confirmation that Anki doesn't work for me, or more generally pedantically following a textbook.

I did 2 levels of Pimsleur, 2 levels of Madinah (with Anki cards) for MSA and got burnt out. Or more exactly, I got bored. So I started Syrian Arabic for a change, and it has brought my motivation back! I'm so excited with it. And I'll use facebook posts, songs, blogs, vlogs, basically whatever I can come across and what interests me, as my materials. This random approach worked best for me in the past.

[flag=]ar-apc[/flag] بقدر احكي سوري شوي
I can speak Syrian (dialect) a little.

I was going to start a new TAC topic and update the first post with the number of chapters I did from my books, but, as I have decided not to follow any book, no need for a new topic! I feel free, almost like Elsa from Frozen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUArQW09Two
She sings in MSA though, so she's not completely free... she has to use the tanween endings properly and carefully choose between the conjunctive and jussive... poor Elsa.
:mrgreen:

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Re: TAC 2016 - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-01-06, 14:25

voron wrote:She sings in MSA though, so she's not completely free... she has to use the tanween endings properly and carefully choose between the conjunctive and jussive... poor Elsa.
:mrgreen:

:lol:


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