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eskandar wrote:I wish there were an option in Duolingo to only focus on reading comprehension and Italian>English translation.
eskandar wrote:Persian: I watched an episode of Afghan Star to try to better familiarize myself with Afghan Persian. It's interesting to notice how differently people seem to talk; some I understand almost effortlessly whereas others I can barely understand at all.
I think the best solution is to slowly plug away at both dialects (which thankfully aren't all that different from each other).
eskandar wrote:Persian: I watched an episode of Afghan Star to try to better familiarize myself with Afghan Persian. It's interesting to notice how differently people seem to talk; some I understand almost effortlessly whereas others I can barely understand at all.
eskandar wrote:Urdu: Slowly working my way through an Urdu nazm. If any Urdu speakers here (Vijay, Saim, Meera?) are interested in trying to tackle it I could post it here.
I'm actually much more attracted to Tunisian, Hassaniya, and Iraqi, but probably won't ever do any serious study of them.
Even after being partitioned, Sudan remains one of the most (if not the most?) diverse Arabic-speaking countries, and I'm curious about interaction between Sudanese Arabic and other languages.
voron wrote:Just yesterday my Kurdish friend and I were watching a documentary about Afghanistan (in Turkish), and when the locals were speaking he claimed it's so similar to Kurdish that he could understand. Well I doubt it is that similar but I did hear a few words myself I could understand, like when they said "çay bixwe" (drink tea).
Limagne wrote:I also recommend you watch cooking shows (that's how I learnt that Afghans call tomatoes بادمجان رومی or just بادمجان ) and travelling shows for more exposure to a variety of dialects.
vijayjohn wrote:Maybe I should try to tackle it. I've been thinking about ways I could improve my proficiency in the languages I've been studying here. You'd think Bollywood movies were an obvious solution, but I think Urdu poetry would be more useful for improving my vocabulary because Bollywood movies often use pretty simple vocabulary. It would probably also be useful for me to watch more YouTube clips of people speaking (nonstandard) Hindi or Urdu.
But I know 16 ghazals by (or at least attributed to) Ghalib (as sung by various artists, so not the full ghazal in any case), one ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and one nazm by Faiz
I'm actually much more attracted to Tunisian, Hassaniya, and Iraqi, but probably won't ever do any serious study of them.
Not Moroccan?
eskandar wrote:Cool! I'll post it soon after I've worked a little more on it. I have such a hard time with nonstandard (esp. rural) Hindi/Urdu.
I did enjoy reading Urdu short stories where the author tried to capture that rural speech in writing (I remember Premchand and Manto doing this a lot), though.
You know all these by heart!?
Very impressive! I used to have a decent mental collection of Urdu shi'rs memorized, but sadly I've forgotten most of them.
Not really. I've traveled Morocco twice and it's...not my favorite country.
I love Tunisia (also traveled there twice) and am fascinated by some of the Hassaniya-speaking countries like Mauritania, as well as Iraq, hence my interest in those dialects. Tunisian is especially appealing because I don't find it totally incomprehensible, unlike the rest of the Maghreb dialects.
vijayjohn wrote:her mom wanted a big ol' North Indian-style party
You know all these by heart!?
And recite them occasionally (almost always to myself ). I do the same thing with all the Persian songs I posted.
Not really. I've traveled Morocco twice and it's...not my favorite country.
Because it's a monarchy or...? (I'm just curious).
Have you by any chance heard Chadian Arabic before?
When I was in grad school, for a brief period (less than a year), there was this Semiticist who joined at the same time as me and did research (fieldwork IIRC) on Tajiki Arabic in Afghanistan. It sounded pretty interesting; he said it doesn't even sound like Arabic, more like some Turkic or Indo-Iranian language (because it's been so heavily influenced by such languages).
eskandar wrote:Do South Indians not do big wedding parties like that??
Ah, that's awesome.
I barely have as many Persian poems memorized and that's my strongest language after English. I need to step my game up!! (I also have a habit of reciting poetry, mostly in Persian and Arabic, to myself...come to think of it, I guess I do still remember a couple of Urdu poems, too).
I think the country's poverty and its dependence on tourist revenue pushes people to try to take advantage of foreigners, and while those factors are true of India as well, somehow I was never affected in the same way.
I've actually read a bit deal about Tajiki Arabic before, which is pretty fascinating. Would love to hear a recording of it, if any exist...
eskandar wrote:I also doubt it's that similar, but of course there are a lot of cognates between Persian and Kurdish (even I can make out a lot of things when I listen to Kurdish music, and I've never studied Kurdish).
voron wrote:Actually I'm pretty sure that people in the program we were watching didn't speak Persian but some other Iranian language (Pashto maybe? I have no idea). Can you probably take a look and identify it (the language the boy is speaking)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tsauFJQbhU&t=17m3s
vijayjohn wrote:Maybe that's in part because India kind of sucks at catering to tourists, though. I mean, my parents are from there and have been there tons of times, yet every time they go, even they have to make a thousand arrangements in advance.
Well...there is this...even if we know they don't have the most reliable record of accuracy in identifying languages.
vijayjohn wrote:voron wrote:Actually I'm pretty sure that people in the program we were watching didn't speak Persian but some other Iranian language (Pashto maybe? I have no idea). Can you probably take a look and identify it (the language the boy is speaking)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tsauFJQbhU&t=17m3s
I thought of Pashto when you mentioned that phrase, but nah, I'm convinced he was speaking Dari.
vijayjohn wrote:Some Bollywood movies (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai comes to mind for me, actually) underwhelm me with the simplicity of their vocabulary
eskandar wrote:Yep, definitely Afghan Persian. No idea about the tune, though.
eskandar wrote:I just finished watching KKHH. Listening comprehension is probably my weakest point in Urdu, so I'm trying to make myself watch Bollywood movies (even though they try my patience ). I even benefited from learning a couple of words I didn't know: samjhotaa (I guessed it correctly, but don't think I'd encountered it before) and sagaa'ii.
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