TAC Meera 2013

[Meera]

Merci TeenReef!

[Meera]

I will have to slipt this update up into diffirent post. Mainly because I was having trouble alligning the scripts and everything.

[flag]hi[/flag]/[flag]ur[/flag] I'm feeling so good about Hindi/Urdu lately. I finished Umrao Jaan finally and I'm going to try to search for more Urdu and Hindi novels. I'm starting to read Parineeta in Hindi (really should be reading it in Bengali but oh well), does anyone have any suggestions for Urdu? I learned alot of vocbulary this week.

Scrictly from my Urdu Book:
صحافی - journalist
زلزلہ - earthquake
لومڑی - fox
پہیہ - wheel
پیشانی - forehead
چیونٹی - ant

میمنا- lamb
معلومات - information
مالی نقصان - loss
سرمایہ- capital
انتظار کرنا - to wait
بینگن - aubergine
دوران- during
پہاڑ - mountain
سودا - groceries
بند - dam
بطخ - duck
عدد- number
تالاب - pond
روحاني- spiritual
رومال - handkerchief


Hindi/Urdu words I learned this week from other sources:
अन्धकार/تاریکی
(Gloom/dark?)
आय/آمدنی
(Income)
हानि/نقصان
(A loss)
ढीला/ڈھیلا
(Loose/Sloppy/Unsophiscated)
लाभ/فائدہ
(Profit)
सुगम/سگم
(Intelliagble/understandable)
दुर्गम/درگم
(inaccesable)
गहरा/گہرا
(deep/serious/greivious)
बंधन/بندھن
(Bond-I knew this word before but it's one of my favorite Hindi/Urdu words)



Some articles I found interesting on the BBC:

ये टीवी चैनल है सिर्फ कुत्तों के लिए
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/internationa ... v_sk.shtml
Haha my dog would love this

लड़कियों पर फेंका तेज़ाब, चार ज़ख़्मी
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/india/2013/0 ... h_ml.shtml
just horrible, this crap needs to stop.

مسیحی بستی کی تباہی کےخلاف مختلف شہروں میں احتجاج
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2013 ... e_zs.shtml

करज़ई: अमरीका और तालिबान में साठगांठ
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/internationa ... n_ia.shtml



Thats all I did for Hindi/Urdu this week. I think I'm going to try to update every Sunday.

[Meera]

[flag]bn[/flag] TeenReef wanted me to put up my updates for Bengali, so honestly I haven't been doing much for it but here goes. I'm up to chapter seven in Colloquial Bengali, which teaches about adverbs, the present progressive tense and describing feelings/emotions. Bengali adverbs are useually formed with kore (করে) or bhabe (ভাবে). Examples:
ami shundoor kore ranna korchi (আমি সুন্দর করে রান্না করছি) - I'm cooking this nicely.
bhale bhabe naro! (ভালে ভাবে নর!)- Stir well!
Besides just a simple present tense Bengali also has a progressive present tense. To form it you change the "vowel" of the stem (kind of like vowel harmony) and then add the present tense ending. To talk about feelings/emotions, you must add the correct form of (লাগা).
Amar khide lagche (আমার খিদে লাগছে)-I'm hungry ( I feel hungry)
Amar thanda lagche (আমার ঠান্ডা লাগছে)-I feel cold.

Some phrases though take hOwa (হব-I'm not sure if this spelling is correct, colloquial doesn't write in Bengali script). For example:
Amar jor hoeche (আমার জ্বর হেছে) - I have a fever.
tomar ki hoeche (তোমার কি হেছে?)-What's wrong with you?

Also interchangble with Laga (লাগা) is pawa (পাবা), and takes the same conjugation.



Some random Bengali words I learned this week:

ঘড়ি - watch
হালকা - mild
ষাঁড় - bull
বার্তা - message
গ্রিষ্মকাম - summer
মালপত্র - luggage
উজ্জ্বল - bright
নানিজান - grandmother
আয়না - mirror
গালিচা - carpet



I have to be honest, I don't know if the spelling is right for anything above, Teach Yourself or Colloquials grammar section do not give the spelling in Bengali script and because the script isn't very phonetic its hard to guess, but I tried as best I could :S It's also a pain to type it on this keyboard, I can see why people use the latin script online

[Meera]

[flag]fa[/flag] I'm feeling very proud of my Persian so far. This is the longest I've stuck with it and I'm making good progress. as I said before I think it's finally starting to "click" with me. I've started Unit Two of Rosetta Stone Farsi (which I'm not the biggest fan of, but oh well). I boggled down with a lot of grammar this week.
I learned about the use of مگر, I'm familiar with the word from Hindi/Urdu but I'm guessing the usage is different in Persian. My book explains that when مگر is used in a negative question, the speaker is expecting the answer "yes". But here you can't use بله, you have to answer چرا. Example:
مگر شما علی را نمی شناسد ؟
(But do you know Ali?)
چرا
(Yes.)

I also learned how to conjugate the past continuous (imperfect) tense. It's very easy, so far at least. All you do is put می in front the simple past form. For example:
می آمدم
(I used to come, was coming)

می آمدید
(You used to come, were coming)

می آمد
(He/she used to come, was coming)

مریم هر سه شنبه به کلاس نقاشی می رفت
Myriam used to go to painting classes every Tuesday.
وقتی که جوان بودند تعطیلات کجا می رفتید
Where did you go on holiday when you were young?

[Meera]

[flag]fr[/flag] Does anyone know any good course books for French? I've been thinking of getting the Living Language course for it, has anyone tried it? I didn't do much for French this week, I did some of the Coffee Break French podcasts and some of my Rosetta Stone but that's really it. I'm using my "French: In Ten Minutes a Day book," but really it only teaches tourist stuff, not that it's bad but yeah I think I will go back to my school French textbook.

[flag]tr[/flag] Nothing yet again I should really go back to it this week or just drop it.

[księżycowy]

[flag]fr[/flag] Does anyone know any good course books for French? I've been thinking of getting the Living Language course for it, has anyone tried it?

I've tried it, but found it a bit lacking in content. I opted for Living French: A Grammar Based Course (not to be confused with Living Language: French), and haven't been disappointed yet. As ceid donn pointed out a while back, it is hard to find a really good French language course, oddly enough. You may just have to try a few to see which you like best.

[shprakh]

Hi, Meera! Did you quit Indonesian?

[Meera]

[flag]fr[/flag] Does anyone know any good course books for French? I've been thinking of getting the Living Language course for it, has anyone tried it?

I've tried it, but found it a bit lacking in content. I opted for Living French: A Grammar Based Course (not to be confused with Living Language: French), and haven't been disappointed yet. As ceid donn pointed out a while back, it is hard to find a really good French language course, oddly enough. You may just have to try a few to see which you like best.

Merci! I will check out that book.Yeah, there are so many course books for it at my bookstore/library but so many are just bad and very "touristy". The Teach Yourself French seems awful. I haven't used it but paged through it at Barnes and Nobel. I haven't tried Colloquial yet though. I have a French Textbook from school called "Contacts", it's very good but you really need a teacher with you, because there's no where to check your answers or translations.

[Meera]

Hi, Meera! Did you quit Indonesian?

No, just not doing it for TAC. Maybe I should replace Turkish with it though

The problem with Indonesian/Malay, is that when I learn it I feel like I'm just memorizing vocabulary lists, its weird the author practically teaches all the grammar in the first five chapters and then the rest is just dialogues with vocabulary. I should actually like that because it would be easier, but it gets boring just sitting there memorizing words with no grammar explanations. Haha before I joined Unilang I never wanderlusted, I mainly stayed with Hindi, Arabic and Tamil and Persian. Now it seems very week I start a new language

[OldBoring]

Merci! I will check out that book.Yeah, there are so many course books for it at my bookstore/library but so many are just bad and very "touristy".

I started learning a language with a touristy course book by Assimil. Which in fact didn't call itself "course" but rather "conversation manual".
And now I learned that language quite well.

[księżycowy]

Merci!

Il n'y a pas de quoi.

Merci! I will check out that book.Yeah, there are so many course books for it at my bookstore/library but so many are just bad and very "touristy".

I started learning a language with a touristy course book by Assimil. Which in fact didn't call itself "course" but rather "conversation manual".
And now I learned that language quite well.

That certainly is possible. It just comes down to what type of stuff you want you work with to learn.

[ceid donn]

I miss Indonesian, but I just don't have time for it. And yeah it does often feel like you're memorizing vocabulary. I guess if I ever pick it up again I need to find a way to do more reading and writing with it.

For French I've been using the materials on Learn French with Alexa. I have a yearly subscription to the site, and it has grammar lessons, "Le sujet de la semaine" lessons that covers a short reading section that lets you practice French in context, dictations and idioms, with additional stuff that she posts on her facebook page from time of time. It's a complete and thorough method, just presented in a less academic, very low-pressure way and Alexa has a really enjoyable personality. You can actually get all her beginner's lessons as podcasts (I think there 33 of them) through iTunes or Audible, and there's a pdf file for each of them (I also have the pdfs so if anyone has trouble getting them, wave me down in my TAC thread). Technically you can download the pdfs for free at Audible without buying the podcasts (they're really cheap for Audible members so I don't see why you shouldn't eventually get them), if you go to the page for that podcast/group of podcasts and download the additional materials from there. That way you can know what the lessons cover before you actually buy them.

[shprakh]

The problem with Indonesian/Malay, is that when I learn it I feel like I'm just memorizing vocabulary lists, its weird the author practically teaches all the grammar in the first five chapters and then the rest is just dialogues with vocabulary.

Does that mean that there isn't much grammar in Indonesian? I have heard that it's a relatively easy language to learn. I wouldn't mind, since what I enjoy the most is learning vocabulary.

[TeneReef]

I find Malay/Indonesian boring. On pair with Spanish.

[Meera]

The problem with Indonesian/Malay, is that when I learn it I feel like I'm just memorizing vocabulary lists, its weird the author practically teaches all the grammar in the first five chapters and then the rest is just dialogues with vocabulary.

Does that mean that there isn't much grammar in Indonesian? I have heard that it's a relatively easy language to learn. I wouldn't mind, since what I enjoy the most is learning vocabulary.

In my opinion it's VERY easy. To me it was even easier than French. The only thing I would say is hard is that the words are very different than English words, but the grammar is like nothing. Like I said the book I had taught all the grammar is five chapters and then the rest was all vocabulary. I really like Indonesian, but in Philly and online there's hardly anyone to practice with. I can find people online but the time difference makes it difficult to practice. I would suggest you try out Indonesian though it's a lot of fun.

[Meera]

I miss Indonesian, but I just don't have time for it. And yeah it does often feel like you're memorizing vocabulary. I guess if I ever pick it up again I need to find a way to do more reading and writing with it.

For French I've been using the materials on Learn French with Alexa. I have a yearly subscription to the site, and it has grammar lessons, "Le sujet de la semaine" lessons that covers a short reading section that lets you practice French in context, dictations and idioms, with additional stuff that she posts on her facebook page from time of time. It's a complete and thorough method, just presented in a less academic, very low-pressure way and Alexa has a really enjoyable personality. You can actually get all her beginner's lessons as podcasts (I think there 33 of them) through iTunes or Audible, and there's a pdf file for each of them (I also have the pdfs so if anyone has trouble getting them, wave me down in my TAC thread). Technically you can download the pdfs for free at Audible without buying the podcasts (they're really cheap for Audible members so I don't see why you shouldn't eventually get them), if you go to the page for that podcast/group of podcasts and download the additional materials from there. That way you can know what the lessons cover before you actually buy them.

Merci! This website looks great!!

[Meera]

[flag]fa[/flag] So my Media Persian book came in on Monday. It has so many words in it. But the ones I've learned so far are these ones:

رسانه ها
Media

رسانه های گروهی
mass media

چند رسانه ای
multi-media

مطبوعات
the press




اعلامیه، بیانیه
statement


کنفرانس ِ مطبوعاتی
Press conference



سخنگوی مطبوعاتی
press spokesperson


روابط ِ عمومی
public relations


گزارش
report

[OldBoring]

Meera, shouldn't be Persian your second language, in Afghanistan?

[Meera]

Meera, shouldn't be Persian your second language, in Afghanistan?

No, I only knew Pashto in Afghanistan.

[shprakh]

I would suggest you try out Indonesian though it's a lot of fun.

I thought about it, but now I really want to do fârsi.