TAC - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

[eskandar]

As a matter of fact, I'm not sure what to do with my Turkish and Arabic at this point. With Turkish, I know that I should read more academic and specialized stuff to improve my vocabulary, but is there even a point, besides perfectionism, if I won't use it in my daily life? With Arabic, I'm sick of being at a false beginner level and doing beginner level materials, but on the other hand, I find intermediate level stuff too challenging and, as a result, boring, and I don't know how to overcome this stage.

With Turkish, are there other things besides academic/technical vocabulary that you wish you knew more of? Idioms and expressions, perhaps? (It's easy to find lists or books compiling sayings, often even with translation). Or perhaps there are some fields of specialized vocabulary you won't use in daily life but are nevertheless important to know? I'm thinking for example of medical vocabulary - if (maazallah) you had to go to the hospital in Turkey, would you know how to explain everything about a potential problem, and understand what the doctor told you?

As for Arabic, I think pushing through intermediate materials is the best thing at this stage. Maybe you can find something interesting enough that it's worth the boring work of hacking your way through it? Something to read on a topic that fascinates you? Or maybe an Arabic translation of a work you've already read, understood, and enjoyed in another language?

[voron]

Thank you for advice, Eskandar!

With Turkish, are there other things besides academic/technical vocabulary that you wish you knew more of?

I want to know more about politics, history and religion.

You know, maybe I should go to a bookstore and buy myself a nice illustrated book on Ottoman history. I loved this kind of books as a child:
https://www.nobelkitap.com/cocuklar-ve- ... 11148.html

(I didn't like the history school books that I found in my new house. They are too shallow with respect to the range of covered topics and details).

Or maybe an Arabic translation of a work you've already read, understood, and enjoyed in another language?

Hmm perhaps I can read "The Little Prince". It was the first book I read in Serbian, and I read it in Turkish as well. I need to buy a paper copy though. I am tired of reading off the screen.

EDIT: I just checked the selection of Arabic readers on online Turkish bookstores, and wow, they have a lot of nice things like graded bilinguial readers. I should definitely make use of them.
https://www.hepsiburada.com/kolay-arapc ... .kitap.pla

[eskandar]

My pleasure! I'm jealous of your ability to read Turkish because there are so many things I'd love to read in the language. Every time I've visited Istanbul a significant portion of my trip seems to involve strolling through bookstores gazing at all the fascinating titles.

One of the first long texts I tried to read was a similar text to the Arabic reader you linked. (Mine was انبياء الله by احمد بهجت). Interestingly enough, the author of your text was an Indian who studied in Lucknow, the same city where I studied Urdu!

[voron]

One of the first long texts I tried to read was a similar text to the Arabic reader you linked. (Mine was انبياء الله by احمد بهجت). Interestingly enough, the author of your text was an Indian who studied in Lucknow, the same city where I studied Urdu!

This page has photos of some inner pages of the reader. I am pretty certain I want to buy it:
https://arapcakitapevi.com/kitap/kasasu ... rton-kapak

What do you think about these books?
https://arapcakitapevi.com/kitap/hikaye ... a-kitaplar
https://arapcakitapevi.com/kitap/5-6-7- ... greniyorum

There is a youtube video at each link introducing the books. It's a set of several small illustrated books, with separate vocabulary sheets and downloadable audios. Look nice! And they are quite cheap too.

[Yasna]

I would love to read the following types of books in Turkish, by a Turkish author:

A history of the Black Sea
A history of Anatolia
A history of the Ottoman Empire
A history of the Turks
A history of the Turkic languages
An analysis of Turkey's geopolitical situation

Do these books exist? I'm thinking of popular/semi-academic books around 300 to 1000 pages, not high school textbooks or illustrated books.

[voron]

Halil İnalcık is considered to be one of the most authoritative researchers of the Ottoman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halil_%25 ... 25C4%25B1k

His book Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Klasik Çağ (The Classical Period of the Ottoman Empire) is the first one on this list of must-read books about the Ottoman Empire:
http://www.leblebitozu.com/osmanli-tari ... -10-kitap/

[eskandar]

What do you think about these books?

Looks like a good way to practice two languages at once! That is, if you don't get bored. You might also see if you can find graphic novels in Arabic. They can be more interesting, because they're aimed at adults, while still easier to read because the text is broken up into short chunks and illustrated. I read a bunch of them when I was studying French, since I was bored with pedagogical materials but not advanced enough to read proper literature.

[voron]

I ordered a bunch of Arabic books yesterday.

I am also thinking about ordering the Kurdish textbook "Hînker" that Vijay and I are going through together. It's less then $4 and having it in paper may motivate me to go through it faster. I am kind of starting a new phase where I will try to spend less time at the computer.

[voron]

My Arabic books arrived, yay! I want to write a short review for one of them.

Qasas an-Nabiyyeen by Abul-Hasan an-Nadwi

As it turns out, this is a really famous book.
You can find it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Qasas-Nabiyyeen- ... 9695832059
on Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/document/4737956 ... bic-Part-1
and there is a deck for it on Memrise: https://www.memrise.com/course/101536/q ... no-typing/

It's a retelling of those parts of the Quran which describe the lives of prophets, with the progressive difficulty of the language. I like how it abundantly includes real quotes from the Quran, even in the easiest stories -- and the difficulty of quotes progresses as well. My copy is bilingual, in Arabic and Turkish.

20190319_125232-min.jpg

[voron]

So, I am trying this new method of learning, which is ... reading real (as in, paper) books. They are those Arabic readers that I received last week; and I am going to order something for Kurdish as well.

It suddenly struck me that I didn't have a single paper book for Arabic before (while I did have quite a bunch for Turkish). And it's much easier to devote empty time windows for books than for reading off the screen (turning on the computer and opening the necessary file takes time, and then there are more distractions).

I think I am still going to post updates in the Kurmanji thread and finish the Kurmanji book with Vijay, but I will drop the Arabic reader we are doing in the Arabic thread.

Unilang is pretty dead these days, anyway. Seems like everyone grew old and busy, and new people aren't coming.

[Antea]

Unilang is pretty dead these days, anyway. Seems like everyone grew old and busy

[voron]

Unilang is pretty dead these days, anyway. Seems like everyone grew old and busy

What are you most upset about? That we grow older or that Unilang is dead?

[Antea]

I suppose both ideas are very depressing

[voron]

So I am reading my Arabic reader, and it interchangeably uses three different pairs of related verbs "to come" and "to bring".
1) أتى، يأتي
"to bring" can be formed from in two different ways:
- either by using it with the preposition ب
- or with Form 4, آتى، يؤتي

2) جاء، يخيء
"to bring" is formed by using it with the preposition ب

3) حضر، يحضر
"to bring" is formed with Form 4, احضر، يُحضر

I am pretty sure I saw them all used in other Arabic texts, so it's not an idiosyncrasy of my reader. There must be a lexical difference between them that I am yet to learn.


I ordered two Kurdish books: Hînker 3 which we are doing in Kurmanji Study Group, and Little Prince (Mîrzayê Biçûk) in Kurdish.


Ordered this compilation of stories by 20th century Turkish writers.
https://m.kitapyurdu.com/index.php?rout ... t_id=51790

[voron]

Another observation:
يُفعَل is passive voice of Form 1
يُفعِل is active voice of Form 4

I was staring at one of them for a minute trying to make sense of the sentence, until I realized it's the other one.

[voron]

1) أتى، يأتي
"to bring" can be formed from in two different ways:
- either by using it with the preposition ب
- or with Form 4, آتى، يؤتي

And besides "to bring", آتى also means "to give".

I am learning Arabic like there is no tomorrow. I hope my inspiration stays for long. I should have started using books earlier, given that it's a widely studied language in Turkey and there is a nice selection of Arabic books on the market.

[eskandar]

Unilang is pretty dead these days, anyway. Seems like everyone grew old and busy, and new people aren't coming.

That's probably part of it. I think it's also that people spend more time on social media where they're connected to people they know in real life, and less time on forums where they interact with strangers (and to the extent that they do, it's more concentrated on very large general spaces like Reddit rather than smaller, specialized forums like this Unilang). It's a shame because I prefer to talk about language learning in a semi-anonymous space like this one.

I am learning Arabic like there is no tomorrow. I hope my inspiration stays for long. I should have started using books earlier, given that it's a widely studied language in Turkey and there is a nice selection of Arabic books on the market.

Glad you've found a new method to reinvigorate your studies!

[voron]

Ordered this compilation of stories by 20th century Turkish writers.
https://m.kitapyurdu.com/index.php?rout ... t_id=51790

This book has arrived. Here is the list of authors and stories (clickable):



Each story is preceeded with its author's short bio, which saves me time looking them up on wiki.

It's interesting that the story Kalemler by Yaşar Kemal is exactly the one I chose to translate for our KST thread in the Turkish subforum. (We dropped it after the first paragraph, though :p).

[vijayjohn]

Speaking of the KST thread, do you think you could correct my last translation there? Pweeeease?

[voron]

Speaking of the KST thread, do you think you could correct my last translation there? Pweeeease?

Sorry, I didn't even see that you posted another translation. Corrected!