Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

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Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-13, 20:04

This thread was formerly called: Learn Estonian / Õpi eesti keelt
--
Tervist!

So, here you are! This is the place for discussing everything concerning the Estonian language. Feel free to ask questions and to propose discussions. Even if there are no native speakers around, the beginners can always benefit from the learners who are in a more advanced stage.

Please also do share lists with the resources you are using for learning Estonian, since online materials and even books for learning the language are a bit too limited. Even so, we can still learn a lot if we do so together, by helping and encouraging each other. After all, that is what Unilang and specially the VSL is about. :D
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Postby Car » 2005-02-13, 21:10

Yay, so there it is! So, Expug, what did you find? I didn't find anything myself so far. :(
Please correct my mistakes!

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Postby Liisi » 2005-02-14, 11:31

This is great :D.

I thought I could share with you what I've learned so far.

Ma olen Liisi (I am Liisi), ma olen soomlane (I am a Finn). Ma räägin (I speak) soome keelt (Finnish), vene keelt (Russian), inglise keelt (English) ja (and) leedu keelt (Lithuanian). Ma saan aru (I understand) natukene (a little) eesti keelt (Estonian), kuid (but) ma ei oska (I don't know how to) rääkida (speak).

Notes:
1) Instead of ma you can also say mina
2) "Language" in nominative is keel
3) Estonian verbs can have two different infinitives depending on the other verbs in the sentence, for example "to speak" can be either rääkida or rääkima. The -da ending usually goes in sentences that express you like doing smth, you can do smth, you want to do smth... etc. But there are exceptions.

Personal pronouns:

I = ma OR mina
you (sing.) = sa OR sina
he/she = ta OR tema
we = meie OR me
you (pl.) = teie OR te
they = nemad OR nad

Ok, there's not much else I can tell you right now. Most of this I've learnt in the chat, but you can trust my resource (vdim). If I made any mistakes here, they are my own :). Now I'm also studying this Finnish site "Nael kummi", which E}{pugnator found (;)). And I use this Russian-Estonian-Russian online dictionary (who knows, maybe someone here will find it useful).

I also have a question for anyone who can answer: I know that tänan and aitäh both mean "thank you", but is there any difference when to use which one?
I appreciate corrections to my mistakes in any language.

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Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-14, 13:31

So, I'm reposting some links I've already posted at the main forum:

http://www.magma.ca/~raksim/estonian/
The most extensive resource in English. The grammar explanations are clear and objective. Unfortunately, the Estonian sentences are not translated into English when given as examples of usage, but if you find a native to translate those sentences for you, you can learn a lot from this site.

http://www.cusd.claremont.edu/~tkroll/eesti.html
Not a lot of information, but still worth a visit.

http://www.hot.ee/horizon/sisukord.htm
Not very extensive. Tables of declension, verbs, pronunciation.

http://my.tele2.ee/lsaffre/205.htm (in German) - A very useful resource if you know German. The explanations are very good and the sentences all get translated into German. If you can read German, this is the best resource to start with. I'm glad I could read it, it was the first time I realized I could read a bit of German for learning another language. ;)

http://www.eki.ee/books/ekkr/ (in Estonian) - A huge grammar entirely in Estonian. Perhaps Liisi can understand it ;) .

http://www.ibs.ee/dict/
A very good Estonian-English-Estonian dictionary. Only its search system is not very appropriate, for instance, if you search for üks you get all entries which have üks in between and this makes it rather impossible to search for small words. In these cases I prefer to use another online dictionary in Estonian. (I'll give the link later).

http://muhu.www.ee/By_Subject/Language/Estonian_Finnish_similarity
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Postby Car » 2005-02-14, 21:26

So how are you learning the language with all the resources?
Are there any alternatives to TEA when wanting to order the course? Any good dictionaries?
Please correct my mistakes!

davisma1984

Postby davisma1984 » 2005-02-14, 23:54

I've been learning Estonian off and on for a little while with a textbook I bought a while ago. Its called "Estonian Textbook". Its pretty good. I only went through the first lesson. I gave up because I had no way to learn pronunciation and the three degrees of length are a pain for me. The book as 40 lessons and covers A LOT of vocabulary and grammar. Just a suggestion if you're looking for a book.

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Postby Mantaz » 2005-02-15, 18:15

Tere tere, väga hea, et see grupp oli avatud :D Mina õpin eesti keelt juba 2 aastat :)

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Hello hello, very good, that this groupd was opened :D I'm studying estonian 2 years already :)

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Postby Car » 2005-02-15, 20:52

davisma1984 wrote:I've been learning Estonian off and on for a little while with a textbook I bought a while ago. Its called "Estonian Textbook". Its pretty good. I only went through the first lesson. I gave up because I had no way to learn pronunciation and the three degrees of length are a pain for me. The book as 40 lessons and covers A LOT of vocabulary and grammar. Just a suggestion if you're looking for a book.


Where did you buy it? Any more information about it (like ISBN or author)?
Please correct my mistakes!

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Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-15, 23:24

If this is the textbook by Tudalva, I recommend it, as I've heard it's the best one available, better than Colloquial Estonian.
Learning Georgian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Papiamentu from scratch. Trying to brush up my Norwegian up to an advanced level.

davisma1984

Postby davisma1984 » 2005-02-16, 0:49

Yeah, its by Juhan Tuldava. ISBN: 0-933070-34-9
I bought my copy off of Amazon.com.

I can't compare it to other Estonian books. It's the only one I've ever looked at. Every lesson has a grammar section, a text, vocab section, exercises, and expressions. Every chapter has a different theme for expressions.

davisma1984

Postby davisma1984 » 2005-02-16, 1:07

Here is a website where you can watch Estonian T.V.

www.tv.ee

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Postby Car » 2005-02-16, 20:20

davisma1984 wrote:Yeah, its by Juhan Tuldava. ISBN: 0-933070-34-9
I bought my copy off of Amazon.com.

I can't compare it to other Estonian books. It's the only one I've ever looked at. Every lesson has a grammar section, a text, vocab section, exercises, and expressions. Every chapter has a different theme for expressions.


Sounds good. I'll only have to find the cheapest way to get it, now...
But where can I get good sound files to learn the pronunciation? If I only have text, I'm usually quite unsure about the pronunciation.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-17, 9:28

Well, the always cited http://www.elanguage.com has many sound files for Estonian, I guess.
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Postby Liisi » 2005-02-20, 14:34

Liisi wrote:I also have a question for anyone who can answer: I know that tänan and aitäh both mean "thank you", but is there any difference when to use which one?


Today I found out the answer myself: aitäh is what people usually say, and tänan is something more official.
I appreciate corrections to my mistakes in any language.

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Postby Mantaz » 2005-02-20, 15:13

Liisi wrote:
Liisi wrote:I also have a question for anyone who can answer: I know that tänan and aitäh both mean "thank you", but is there any difference when to use which one?


Today I found out the answer myself: aitäh is what people usually say, and tänan is something more official.

"aitäh" is only an expression, which is not either noun, verb or smth similar. "Tänan" is actually a verb meaning "I thank". But yes, first one is more often used in informal language ;)

henrik

Postby henrik » 2005-02-27, 16:36

Tere kõigile!

Päris tore on näha, et nii palju inimesi eesti keelt õpib:) Mina räägin eesti keelt juhtumisi emakeelena, nii et kui lubate, kommenteerin natuke teie seniseid postitusi. Püüan siia hiljem ka tagasi tulla, nii et kui kellegil on veel mingisuguseid küsimusi, laske aga tulla :)

It's great to see that so many people are learning Estonian. I happen to be a native speaker, so I hope I may comment on your posts a little. I'll try to check back later, so if you have any more questions, fire away :)

Liisi wrote:Ma olen Liisi (I am Liisi), ma olen soomlane (I am a Finn). Ma räägin (I speak) soome keelt (Finnish), vene keelt (Russian), inglise keelt (English) ja (and) leedu keelt (Lithuanian). Ma saan aru (I understand) natukene (a little) eesti keelt (Estonian), kuid (but) ma ei oska (I don't know how to) rääkida (speak).

Your third sentence uses the wrong case for "eesti keel". The correct way to say this is: "Ma saan natukene eesti keelest aru, kuid ma ei oska rääkida". Otherwise very good :)

Liisi wrote:1) Instead of ma you can also say mina

True. "Ma" is simply a shortened form of the first person pronoun "mina". The same you can change "sina" (you) to "sa", "tema" (he/she) to "ta", "meie" (we) to "me", "teie" (you in plural) to "te" and "nemad" (they) to "nad". There are some sentences and constructions that this would be wrong though.

Liisi wrote:3) Estonian verbs can have two different infinitives depending on the other verbs in the sentence, for example "to speak" can be either rääkida or rääkima. The -da ending usually goes in sentences that express you like doing smth, you can do smth, you want to do smth... etc. But there are exceptions.

Also true. "Rääkima" is the basic infinitive of the word "speak", but if you want to say, eg, "I can speak", it would be "Ma oskan rääkida". Similarly, "I want to speak" would be "Ma tahan rääkida".

You can also easily make a noun out of a verb by replacing the -ma ending of the infinitive by -mine. Thus "rääkima" -> "rääkimine" (speaking) or "kirjutama" -> "kirjutamine" (writing).

Liisi wrote:I also have a question for anyone who can answer: I know that tänan and aitäh both mean "thank you", but is there any difference when to use which one?

Mantaz has answered this one correctly.

E}{pugnator wrote:http://www.ibs.ee/dict/
A very good Estonian-English-Estonian dictionary.

This is NOT a very good dictionary. Aside from the fact that it's search engine sucks, the content is probably from somewhere in the 70-ies. So don't trust it completely. Unfortunately, AFAIK, there aren't any better ones available online for now.

I have a question of my own. Does anyone know any Czech people who are learning Estonian? I am currently trying to learn Czech and it would be good to communicate with some native Czech speaker who would be interested in learning Estonian at the same time.

Igal juhul olge tublid ja jõudu kõigile!
Henrik

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Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-27, 18:16

Tere Henrik!

It's very nice to have you here to help us! We all are very interested in learning this wonderful language! Thanks for your hints, hope you can help us more as we start learning.

I'm still waiting for a book to arrive before starting to learn actively, but you can post here for us anything you feel like, useful expressions, tips etc.

Welcome to Unilang!


Expug
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Postby henrik2 » 2005-02-27, 18:40

E}{pugnator wrote:Welcome to Unilang!

Thank you. I am now also a registered user on the forum, so this way I'll probably be able to react to your questions faster.

Can I ask you all why you are trying to learn Estonian? :)

Henrik

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Postby E}{pugnator » 2005-02-27, 19:06

Well, this is Unilang ;) . One does not needs a lot of reasons for learning a language.

But well, I learn Estonian because I wanted to learn a Finno-ugric language but I dislike Finnish very much. And I'm also fascinated by the Baltic countries and their cultures, I plan on to learn Lithuanian and Latvian as well, they have interesting stuff to learn at the Indo-european branch. Estonian sounds nice, as well. It doesn't sound very monotonous like Finnish, although people say they are so much alike, I think the difference is enough to make me like Estonian.
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Postby Car » 2005-02-27, 21:16

My reasons are similar to the ones Expug mentioned though I don't dislike Finnish, I just prefer Estonian (don't really know why). I have never listened to it so far either...
Please correct my mistakes!


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