Bengali ( বাংলা)

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-06, 18:03

You should learn Bengali with us 8-)

I recomend using both Colloquial and TY Bengali. The TY is good but very challenging and not very user freindly. For example he doesn't even put vocabulary after the dialouges! and I have no idea why he romanzied all the grammar sections. Bengali is a bit harder than Hindi/Urdu I think because the script isn't always phonetic. But it might be eaiser for you because it has many more sanskritic words than Hindi/Urdu

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2013-12-07, 2:58

Meera wrote:You should learn Bengali with us

I think I'd love to do that!

I recomend using both Colloquial and TY Bengali.

Well, I have TY in print. Don't have Colloquial, though. I guess I'll have to download it illegally or something.

The TY is good but very challenging and not very user freindly. For example he doesn't even put vocabulary after the dialouges! and I have no idea why he romanzied all the grammar sections.

I think I remember a second-generation Bangladeshi guy criticizing it a bit more harshly.

It's not too bad once you've seen like 25 Satyajit Ray movies, though. :lol:

Bengali is a bit harder than Hindi/Urdu I think because the script isn't always phonetic.

Yeah, but that's OK for me. I've gotten used to it.

But it might be eaiser for you because it has many more sanskritic words than Hindi/Urdu

Well, it's easier for me because I learned Hindi/Urdu before Bengali, and I've had a good deal of exposure to Bengali already.

I just think Bengali sounds a lot more normal for an Indian language than Hindi/Urdu does. Like, I know other Indian languages (including Bengali!) have borrowed a lot from Persian, but not to the extent that Hindi/Urdu has. But probably every Indian language borrows a lot (directly or indirectly) from Classical Sanskrit (like Bengali does).

Bijlee · Postby **Bijlee** » 2013-12-07, 5:09

Meera wrote:The TY is good but very challenging and not very user freindly. For example he doesn't even put vocabulary after the dialouges! and I have no idea why he romanzied all the grammar sections.

I think he did it since it's hard to predict the sounds sometimes. Though then I don't see why he wouldn't add it for the dialogues too... But yeah, not having the vocab sucks. I'm constantly having to go back and forth from the glossary back to the dialogues. Have you seen Complete Bengali? I wonder if they decided to fix that.
I would have been so lost learning Bengali with TY if I hadn't known some Hindi first; I remember doing a lot of guessing based off what I knew about Hindi. But it's a great book even so!

vijayjohn wrote:I think I'd love to do that!

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!! :partyhat:

Also, here's Introduction to Bengali online- it's a decent book, but it hardly ever uses the script (and when it does, you can hardly read it! It looks so smudged).

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-07, 5:15

Bijlee wrote:
Meera wrote:The TY is good but very challenging and not very user freindly. For example he doesn't even put vocabulary after the dialouges! and I have no idea why he romanzied all the grammar sections.

I think he did it since it's hard to predict the sounds sometimes. Though then I don't see why he wouldn't add it for the dialogues too... But yeah, not having the vocab sucks. I'm constantly having to go back and forth from the glossary back to the dialogues. Have you seen Complete Bengali? I wonder if they decided to fix that.
I would have been so lost learning Bengali with TY if I hadn't known some Hindi first; I remember doing a lot of guessing based off what I knew about Hindi. But it's a great book even so!

I honestly don't think I could get through that TY if I had no knowledge of hindi/urdu. It would be extreamly challenging. The only TY is good is because there is so little for Bengali.

Bijlee · Postby **Bijlee** » 2013-12-07, 5:28

Meera wrote:I honestly don't think I could get through that TY if I had no knowledge of hindi/urdu. It would be extreamly challenging. The only TY is good is because there is so little for Bengali.

I would have given up really quickly on it. I guess it's decent for teaching the script, but once you get to part II it's confusing. The one thing that makes the book really good is the literature section, but I think he rushed through the grammar stuff in order to have enough room to put it in.

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-07, 6:17

Yeah I agree. I like the litterture section too but I agree he rushed to quickly to get it it.

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2013-12-07, 19:28

I think TY is actually OK for me, personally. I skipped Part One because I was already pretty familiar with Bengali script; I have two of those really crappy (even crappier!) books for learning Bengali right here ("Learn Bengali in 30 Days" and also "Learn Bengali in a Month," lol), and I learned the alphabet from them. Also, I used the texts and the credits in Ray movies to practice my reading (as well as any writing on the DVD covers).

So then I just kind of whizzed through Part Two...for like five chapters before I hit the long dialog in small print in Chapter 19.

Then I tried to go through that dialog (I think I was pretty much forced to break it up into parts), but finally, I was just like, "Eh, I'm too lazy to work through this whole thing now" and never went back to Bengali since then, since I didn't have (or no longer had) any practical reason whatsoever for learning it anyway. (Had to focus on Italian, Japanese, and Romani

).

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-08, 0:27

aww

you shouldve of sticked with bangla

Postby **vijayjohn** » 2013-12-08, 7:09

Well hey, now I have an excuse to get back into it, so we all win! :lol:

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-11, 5:50

ঠিক আছে

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-25, 2:21

My introduction to Bengali part 1 came in the mail today! Yay!!

Bijlee · Postby **Bijlee** » 2013-12-26, 8:47

I love that book- I feel like I've traveled back in time when reading it.
Plus some of the dialogues are so funny. :mrgreen:

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-26, 20:23

Do you have the second one also? Or just the first?

Bijlee · Postby **Bijlee** » 2013-12-27, 4:55

I only have the first book. I've barely even used the second part, though it's online:
http://home.uchicago.edu/~cbs2/banglainstruction.html

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2013-12-27, 5:11

Oh wow awesome :mrgreen:

thanks for sharing the link.

TeneReef · Postby **TeneReef** » 2014-01-17, 18:24

Bengali kids' encyclopaedia
http://kidz-us.bdnews24.com/index.php

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2014-01-19, 5:48

Awesome link, thanks

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2014-05-22, 18:53

Hey guys if you want a Bengali course on Duolingo vote here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/152lVII ... 2684875661

Voting ends May 25 at 3 pm. There are other languages there as well, so choose which ever one. I chose Bengali.

Meera · Postby **Meera** » 2014-07-14, 2:08

This is a great site for Bengali:
http://supriyosen.net/

Postby **Luís** » 2016-01-12, 13:41

What would you guys recommend for learning the script?

There's a (relatively) large Bangladeshi community in the neighborhood where I'm currently working, so it would be nice to learn some stuff about it

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