TAC eskandar (Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu)

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TAC eskandar (Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu)

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-02, 8:45

I think this year I'll try to track some of my progress in language learning on here. My main goals will be to work on Persian, Urdu, and Arabic. I'll also mess around with French and Italian Turkish. Edit: Arabic, Hebrew, and Italian are my active languages in 2019.

Persian: I think I'm at a similar level in Persian to where Vijay is with Malayalam (maybe slightly lower, especially as I didn't start learning it until much later in life, though I'm arrogant enough to give myself four stars anyway). My main goal is to maintain high proficiency and continue building my range of vocabulary and expression. Aside from things I read for research, I might want to read some novels, or go back through the classical poetry I studied years ago. I also want to (re-)watch a bunch of Iranian movies.

Urdu: I'm reading a lot of Urdu these days for my dissertation. It might be worthwhile to post my notes on vocabulary or translations here. I really want to improve my speaking and aural comprehension, so I'll try to suspend my boredom through some dramas or Bollywood movies or something. I watched half of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai without subtitles the other week and will try to finish it when I find the time. I'm toying with the idea of spending a month in Pakistan this summer, though I'm not sure if it will be practical.

Arabic: I've decided I want to resume serious Arabic study after a year and a half of mostly putting it aside. I might pick up where I left off by reviewing my notes from the summer I spent in Cairo, working through some textbooks, or going back over the literature I read while there. I have a short story or two I'd like to translate as well. My focus will remain on standard Arabic, but since I'm moving to an area with an Iraqi refugee community I might try to pick up some Iraqi, a dialect I've always found both fascinating and impenetrable.

French: I've mostly given up on getting better at speaking and writing and just want to read more in French. I think if I put some time into it, I'm not far off from a place where I'd be reading pretty comfortably. No plans to dedicate serious time to French, though.

Italian: Every few years I get the bug to learn to read Italian since there are things I want to read in it. I wish there were an option in Duolingo to only focus on reading comprehension and Italian>English translation. I like phone apps and especially gamefied learning like Duolingo because I can spend a few minutes of downtime throughout the day staying engaged with a language, but I have zero interest whatsoever in speaking Italian. If I find the motivation I'll work my way through "Essential Italian Grammar" and then try to start reading texts with a dictionary. Edit: Doesn't seem like anything is going to happen with Italian. Have been spending more time on Turkish instead.
Last edited by eskandar on 2020-03-22, 18:08, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby dEhiN » 2017-02-03, 15:08

eskandar wrote:I wish there were an option in Duolingo to only focus on reading comprehension and Italian>English translation.

You can specify in settings that you have no mic. I think you can also specify that you have no speakers. There was one time, at least on Duolingo for Android, where I had neither and I was able to only get translation exercises. Of course that meant any new word I learned, I wouldn't be able to hear its pronunciation.

Edit: Yes, I just confirmed. Under Settings > Accessibility, there are two options: "Speaking exercises" and "Listening exercises". There's also a way to turn of sound effects. And on the website, you can go to Account Settings, and there are the options On/Off for both "Microphone" and "Speaker" (as well as "Voice autoplay" and "Sound effects".
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-03, 17:07

Thanks dEhiN. That takes care of some exercises but leaves the "translate this sentence into Italian" exercises. I wish you could make it entirely "translate from Italian into English," and eliminate the multiple choice which is too easy.
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby dEhiN » 2017-02-03, 19:18

Actually it surprised me the first time I tried Duolingo and saw that they teach you to translate both directions. I remember a friend of mine who studied Translation Studies with French was taught that it's better to translate from a foreign language into your native tongue. I believe the reasoning is that no matter how good you are in a foreign language, writing in it is different because you'll never quite get all the connotations and nuances. That only really comes from a native language - a language you grew up speaking and think in.
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-03, 19:19

Oops, I meant to tell eskandar about skipping the listening exercises but forgot! :ohwell:

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-10, 7:11

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.

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.

Arabic: Thinking about learning some Levantine Arabic over the next year. It's enjoying a moment of popularity here on Unilang, and I've always gone back and forth about focusing on Egyptian or Levantine, as far as colloquial Arabic goes. Egyptian remains the most useful dialect internationally, in my opinion, but I live in the US and Levantine is by far the most common dialect spoken here. I think the best solution is to slowly plug away at both dialects (which thankfully aren't all that different from each other). I'm actually much more attracted to Tunisian, Hassaniya, and Iraqi, but probably won't ever do any serious study of them. Meanwhile lately I'm wanderlusting for Sudanese. 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.
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby voron » 2017-02-10, 9:39

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.

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).

I think the best solution is to slowly plug away at both dialects (which thankfully aren't all that different from each other).

I've been thinking about learning some basics of Egyptian lately. :)

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby Limagne » 2017-02-10, 10:17

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 feel the same. Some Tajik dialects sound like a different language :|

I also recommend you watch cooking shows (that's how I learnt that Afghans call tomatoes بادمجان رومی or just بادمجان :lol: ) and travelling shows for more exposure to a variety of dialects.

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-10, 15:53

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.

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.

Some Bollywood movies (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai comes to mind for me, actually) underwhelm me with the simplicity of their vocabulary, and I think it may actually be a better idea for me to try watching more movies in some other languages because even though I'm no Bollywood fan or anything, I have seen enough of them to be able to predict almost the entire plot of Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai within the first two minutes. :lol: 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, and deciphering them can be complicated enough; see this for example. The syntax confuses me, too; for example, in that verse I just linked to, they translate ham as 'we', but isn't it more likely to mean 'I' in this context? And is ham jana really a grammatical way to say 'we knew'; shouldn't it be ham jane? Or is it grammatical precisely because ham means 'I' here? Or does Ghalib just violate Urdu grammar rules whenever he feels like it? :P (I do remember reading somewhere that he very deliberately made his poetry confusing).
I'm actually much more attracted to Tunisian, Hassaniya, and Iraqi, but probably won't ever do any serious study of them.

Not Moroccan?
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.

With 70 languages indigenous to it, it's got to be the most. The rest of the Arab World seems relatively linguistically homogeneous.

Regarding Sudanese Arabic and other languages, I know Sudanese Arabic has been influenced by the Nubian languages in some parts of Sudan, and there's a lot of variation in how Arabic is spoken throughout Sudan due to varying degrees of influence from other languages. Also, Juba Arabic exists in South Sudan, and I posted a song in it once. :P

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-16, 6:43

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).

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). Once years ago I was trying to understand this Hazaragi (a dialect of Afghan Persian) lamentation:
https://youtu.be/6o6laZpMFoM
It remains mostly unintelligible to me. (If Limagne can make out any more of this than "Husayn janam, Husayn janam, Husayn jan" I'll be impressed!) Anyway, I showed it to a Kurdish friend from Turkey (who knows Persian) and for some reason he was convinced that it was actually in a dialect of Kurdish that was not mutually intelligible with his. :lol:

Limagne wrote:I also recommend you watch cooking shows (that's how I learnt that Afghans call tomatoes بادمجان رومی or just بادمجان :lol: ) and travelling shows for more exposure to a variety of dialects.

Thanks for the recommendation! That's so interesting about tomatoes... :o In the travel show you linked, the guy speaking at 4:25 must have a regional accent that isn't even intelligible to other Afghans--or maybe he's speaking Pashto--seeing as how they dubbed over him! Speaking of Afghan things, I've been addicted to this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZ5JBwTMDc
The only words I didn't understand at first turned out to be English loans for words where Iranian Persian prefers a French loanword, like AP فیشن for IP مُد, or AP موتر for IP ماشین .

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.

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.

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

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.

I'm actually much more attracted to Tunisian, Hassaniya, and Iraqi, but probably won't ever do any serious study of them.

Not Moroccan?

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.
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-16, 7:40

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 can't even understand my sister-in-law's family and friends. Her family at least is from Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad, right next to Delhi. At my brother and sister-in-law's "engagement party" (which actually took place after they got engaged, though this was kept a secret from most of the guests for the sole reason that her mom wanted a big ol' North Indian-style party :P), one of the female guests was telling a joke about somebody offering some clueless white lady a [ˈgoɽi]. I swear she said [ˈgoɽi] without any breathy voice, which left me confused. She asked my mom whether she knew what a [ˈgoɽi] was, my mom said yes, and I was thinking, "You do?? :shock:" before finally finding out they did mean [ˈgʱoɽi] 'horse' after all. I don't think my sister-in-law's relatives think I pronounce breathy voiced consonants properly, either, though. :lol:
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.

I should probably read some of Munshi Premchand's work. I think my parents told me they had to read some in Hindi class. I remember they shared a poem with me that I think they attributed to him, but I only remember the first two lines and the fifth line now. I can't find it anywhere online:

پیارے بچے کام کرو تم
تھوڑا سا آرام کرو تم
[...]
چلو، بڑھو، پیچھے مت جاؤ!

You know all these by heart!?

And recite them occasionally (almost always to myself :P). I do the same thing with all the Persian songs I posted.
Very impressive! I used to have a decent mental collection of Urdu shi'rs memorized, but sadly I've forgotten most of them.

Thanks! :)
Not really. I've traveled Morocco twice and it's...not my favorite country.

Because it's a monarchy or...? (I'm just curious).
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.

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).

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-16, 8:37

vijayjohn wrote:her mom wanted a big ol' North Indian-style party

Do South Indians not do big wedding parties like that??

You know all these by heart!?

And recite them occasionally (almost always to myself :P). I do the same thing with all the Persian songs I posted.

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).

Not really. I've traveled Morocco twice and it's...not my favorite country.

Because it's a monarchy or...? (I'm just curious).

Well yeah, it is a particularly rotten monarchy, but also because its touts are pushier than anywhere else I've been, including the most touristy parts of Delhi, Agra, Cairo, or Istanbul. I'm a pretty savvy traveler but I've also had more people try to rip me off (sometimes successfully) in Morocco than anywhere else. 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.

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).

I watched some Christian missionary videos in Chadian Arabic on Youtube, but I think they were going for a kind of standardized version of the dialect...I understood way more than I expected, and I feel like that wouldn't be the case with a more "genuine" example of Chadian Arabic.

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...
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-16, 13:27

eskandar wrote:Do South Indians not do big wedding parties like that??

Wedding parties maybe, but this was an engagement party. We don't have this thing. Also, a key difference between North Indian wedding/engagement parties and South Indian parties of any kind is that the North Indian ones have all this obligatory dancing. (Well, okay, I'm sure not all North Indians make it obligatory, but well, these North Indians definitely were inclined to actually drag their guests into a dance). From a traditional South Indian perspective at least, I would say dancing is an aesthetic art form that tends to require years of training, not something just anyone can do properly.
Ah, that's awesome.

Thanks again. :)
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).

Reciting ghazals and Persian pop songs is a very effective way to pass the time on long plane rides. :lol:
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.

Maybe that's in part because India kind of sucks at catering to tourists, though. :P 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.
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...

Well...there is this...even if we know they don't have the most reliable record of accuracy in identifying languages. :whistle:

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby voron » 2017-02-16, 15:07

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).

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

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-17, 1:32

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.

EDIT: Also, does anybody happen to know what tune that is that's played on the rabab (I think) over and over again in that video? It's gorgeous. :P

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-20, 5:26

vijayjohn wrote:Maybe that's in part because India kind of sucks at catering to tourists, though. :P 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.

Nah, I'm talking about touts on the street trying to sell you crap or convince you that you need a tour guide... The fact that I encountered it more in Morocco than in India is all the more striking because, while I don't stick out the way white people (especially blondes or gingers) do there, I think I definitely look more Arab than Indian. (In Paris I got mistaken for Lebanese all the time).

Well...there is this...even if we know they don't have the most reliable record of accuracy in identifying languages. :whistle:

Nice!! Don't know why I didn't think to check there. It barely sounds like Arabic, and I can only catch a few words here and there.

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.

Yep, definitely Afghan Persian. No idea about the tune, though.

Also, speaking of
vijayjohn wrote:Some Bollywood movies (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai comes to mind for me, actually) underwhelm me with the simplicity of their vocabulary

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 :lol: ). 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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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby voron » 2017-02-20, 12:36

eskandar wrote:Yep, definitely Afghan Persian. No idea about the tune, though.

Wow, Afghan Persian sounds pretty cool then. :)

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-21, 2:26

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 :lol: ). 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.

I also learned a couple of words, but that's the thing; it's just a couple of words. There are also a lot of Hindi/Urdu movies that don't try my patience, including some with relatively realistic plot lines that often deal with very real social issues and none of these heroines with weird attitude problems. :lol: These can also be far more helpful in helping me with both improving my listening comprehension and exposing myself to dialect variation, so I'd like to make you a few recommendations if that's okay, although I don't know how many of these you are or aren't already familiar with. :)

For a while, my favorite movie ever (in any language) was Ankur (1974); I was so obsessed and fascinated with this movie that IIRC, I wrote most of the Wikipedia article on it myself because it actually has a fairly complex plot. It's set in Telengana near Hyderabad, so there's at least some Dakhini in the dialogue. It has no songs other than excerpts of two movie songs from the late 50s (played on a phonograph), of a few working/folk songs in Telugu, and I think maybe of one folk song in Dakhini. There's one line where the village cop introduces himself saying main Police Patel Sheikh Chand hoon, but it sounds like [mə̃j poˈlis pəˈʈel ʃɛx t͡ʃaŋː] almost as if he said "Sheikh Chang." :lol:

Then I came across Swami (1977), which I think may be comparable to Ankur in terms of plot quality. It's about an intelligent, well-educated woman whose mother forces her into an arranged marriage that she wishes (and struggles) to leave in favor of her boyfriend.

Satyajit Ray also made a couple of movies in Hindi: Shatranj ke Khiladi (1977) and Sadgati (1981). I've seen the first but not the second and remember almost nothing about the plot of the first one, possibly just because I've seen so many of Ray's Bengali movies that seeing a movie of his with lots of flowery Urdu in it all of a sudden weirded me out. :P It was definitely another movie with a complex plot, though.

OK, this post is getting way too wordy. :silly: So here's just a quick (probably incomplete) list of other movies I'd like to recommend (or at least suggest just because I've seen them and think they're pretty good), in no particular order: Piya Ka Ghar (1972), Chhoti Si Baat (1975), Lagaan (2001), Swades (2004), Chitchor (1976), Bewafaa (2005), Aitraaz (2004), Water (2005), Do Bigha Zamin (1953), Bombay (1995), and Chupke Chupke (1975).
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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby eskandar » 2017-02-21, 5:15

For me the listening comprehension practice is worth it even if I don't learn any new words. I also like watching quality Indian films (I've seen a handful of older ones that I loved) but once in a while I feel like I should watch a garbage movie that everyone's seen, as a form of cultural literacy, haha. Thanks for the recommendations. I've long wanted to see Shatranj ke Khilari as it's supposed to have beautiful Urdu. Lagaan is another one that I've been meaning to watch for years. I'd like to get around to some of these eventually...maybe I should watch them in installments. I could probably spare 30 minutes a day or so to waste on movies, although there's also a lot of Iranian films I've been wanting to watch.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

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Re: TAC 2017 eskandar

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-02-21, 5:54

Oh! Well, in that case, you should see Sholay. :lol: "Dekh le na, gaonwalo! When I dead...police coming...police coming, burhiya going jail! In jail, burhiya just keep pissing and pissing and pissing and pissing, and pissing...!" - The only quote in the entire movie that actually made me laugh
(For anyone who read that quote but doesn't get the cross-linguistic pun here and isn't familiar with the movie: One of the two heroes says this while drunk and threatening suicide, attracting an audience. He's saying after he dies, the police will arrest this old lady in the audience and force her to grind spices all day ([pɪsˈna] means 'to grind')).


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