TAC - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

[księżycowy]

Since voron said it was okay to talk about other things here, too: Why?

Well, it just sounds more like something someone would write as a novel now-a-days.

I can't say for sure, but I don't think narrative poetry is still a thing in the Western world. It's certainly not as prevelent as novels and the like, whatever the case.

[məˈjuːɾə sən̪ˈd̪eːɕəm], or "The Peacock's Message." (The words for both 'peacock' and 'message' are Sanskrit loanwords. However, the etymology for the Sanskrit word for 'peacock' is apparently disputed, and it could itself be a Dravidian loanword into Sanskrit; the common word for 'peacock' in Malayalam is [məˈjɪl]).

What? Not going to write it in Malayalam script?

[vijayjohn]

Sure. മയൂരസന്ദേശം. I usually Romanize it here as Mayura Sandesham.

It's divided into two parts. The first part is 68 quatrains, and the second is 73. I got up to quatrain #58, but I'm struggling to remember everything I memorized earlier.

This is the first page of the actual poem (the nine pages before it are all introductory), and these are all the pages (and AFAICT so far, that last link is also the only way to navigate between pages). On the right-hand side of each page is the original text from 1895 (I have a later edition from 1965), and on the left-hand side is the computer-readable version. This is the same publication but all on one page.

Unfortunately, neither my dad nor I is aware of a hardcopy version of this book that's currently available anywhere.

[voron]

There are countless words for 'to start (doing something)'. The ones that come my mind:
بدأ
صار
جعل
ظلّ
أخذ

One more:
شرع

I read stories 2 and 3 of level 3.

[księżycowy]

Unfortunately, neither my dad nor I is aware of a hardcopy version of this book that's currently available anywhere.

This: https://onlinestore.dcbooks.com/books/mayurasandesam ?

[vijayjohn]

Yes! Do they deliver overseas?

[księżycowy]

Yeah. I already checked.

[voron]

I read story 4 of level 3.



Can't wait to get to level 4. It's one big book, not a collection of booklets like levels 1,2,3, with fewer illustrations and much more Arabic in it. And as far as I understand it's an unadapted book for Arab children written by the Egyptian writer Kamel Keilany.

[voron]

Duolingo Arabic came out today.

Not sure if someone here is even interested... I guess everyone has realized by now that Duolingo won't take you further than A1 or A2 at best. I took the Arabic placement test, it placed me on the last level, which was still very basic, teaching structures like "do you have", "there is", simple sentences without clauses and stuff like that. It's not even A2, but if you want a gamified intro into the very basics, then you can try it.

(And Duolingo now also has a paid version, while the unpaid version is spammed with advertisements. Atrocious).

[Luís]

I guess everyone has realized by now that Duolingo won't take you further than A1 or A2 at best

The worst part is I've seen people mention their Duolingo "certificates" on their resumes...

[Saim]

From what I've heard because the audio is imperfect TTS it sometimes teaches incorrect verb forms ('ana 'a7aba), not sure if they'll be able to fix that without hiring a voice actor.

I guess everyone has realized by now that Duolingo won't take you further than A1 or A2 at best

You should stop by Reddit and see some of the people celebrating 2-3 year "streaks".

[voron]

From what I've heard because the audio is imperfect TTS it sometimes teaches incorrect verb forms ('ana 'a7aba), not sure if they'll be able to fix that without hiring a voice actor.

One seemingly easy way to fix it is to use a TTS that understands voweling, and use voweling everywhere throughout their words and texts.

And yes I played with the Arabic course for like half an hour today and came across several incorrect pronunciations. Don't remember the exact examples thoughs, AFAIK it's especially non-Arabic personal names (like Nick or Carrie) that were messed up.

Edit: I was bored and completed the Arabic course.


The last module taught you how to say "What is your name" and "Assalamu alaikum". And the weirdest sentence I got was:
تلفازي في أسدي - My TV is in my lion.

[Car]

From what I've heard because the audio is imperfect TTS it sometimes teaches incorrect verb forms ('ana 'a7aba), not sure if they'll be able to fix that without hiring a voice actor.

I guess everyone has realized by now that Duolingo won't take you further than A1 or A2 at best

You should stop by Reddit and see some of the people celebrating 2-3 year "streaks".

Reddit is bad when it comes to that. There are so many people posting stuff about Duolingo that it's hard to find information that actually is useful.

Well, at least the sentence is only weird/ useless. The Polish course actually teaches you "Are you a human?".

[voron]

There are countless words for 'to start (doing something)'. The ones that come my mind:
بدأ
صار
جعل
ظلّ
أخذ
شرع

And one more:
راح

I read story 5 of level 3.

[voron]

Watched the first episode of Türkisch für Anfänger today. And listened to this song:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4ncBSiYIaB4
"Sie ist çok güzel", what a sentence!

That's a bit weird but since I predominantly hear German from Turkish immigrants, I mostly get interested in this subculture of German. And It seems like I know enough German to be able to jump to original content right away.

[voron]

I read story 6 of level 3.

The story name was ارنبان سعيدان (Two happy rabbits), and it contained a lot of verbs and nouns in the dual form. Which made me a bit uncomfortable because I am not too good with the duals.

Where do you put the stress in forms like
جلسا
طعامهما
?

Is it on the last alef?

Also, I thought the form ملآ (they two filled) looked funny.

[eskandar]

I think it's on the final alif. I guess you could check the audio files for one of the stories that uses the dual in Kalila wa Dimna if you wanted to be really sure. Personally I'm not too concerned since Arabs tend to pronounce fuS7a according to the stress patterns of their native dialect, anyway.

[vijayjohn]

Yeah. I already checked.

Nice!

Duolingo Arabic came out today.

Not sure if someone here is even interested...

I'm sort of interested, and I happened to notice (actually, it came out the previous day, from my perspective, probably due to time differences ).

You should stop by Reddit and see some of the people celebrating 2-3 year "streaks".

Eh, I can kind of understand that sort of thing coming from people who aren't language nerds like us. Learning a language is a lot harder for them, so it's a big achievement for them.

The last module taught you how to say "What is your name" and "Assalamu alaikum".

Seriously?

[Saim]

Eh, I can kind of understand that sort of thing coming from people who aren't language nerds like us. Learning a language is a lot harder for them, so it's a big achievement for them.

Certainly the discipline to use it on a daily basis is an acheivement but you're wasting your time if you're using Duolingo as your primary resource for 2-3 years. At least if you want to actually learn anything.

Also I'm talking about r/languagelearning, not random parts of Reddit.

[voron]

I read story 7 of level 3, قبعة الساحر (A Wizard's Hat). Only 3 more stories to go until I complete the level!

[voron]

Personally I'm not too concerned since Arabs tend to pronounce fuS7a according to the stress patterns of their native dialect, anyway.

And, you want to follow their steps and pronounce fuS7a illiterally?

Honestly though, when I read fuS7a aloud, I drop case endings and verb endings, and swallow some middle vowels, and sometimes even replace ث and ذ with ت and ز.