TAC eskandar (Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu)

[vijayjohn]

I brought up how it was pronounced because we were talking at an earlier point about the extent to which Pakistanis pronounce sounds that are foreign to Indo-Iranian languages ([z] was borrowed from Persian, and a lot of Indians replace it with [d͡ʒ]).

Don't you mean Indo-Aryan?

Oh shit, yes, I did...I got confused because I made it a point to say "Indo-Iranian" languages instead of "Indo-Aryan" in the previous sentence so I didn't leave Persian out.

[eskandar]

Arabic has basically been on hold lately, though I definitely plan to get back to it when I have more time.

I'm happy with my progress in Hebrew. Looking back at my log, about a year ago I felt I had just about reached B1. I think I'm still more or less there, but now at the high end, getting closer to B2. I've done well with mostly learning through immersion. I need to find a new show (preferably one with short episodes) to watch! The only problem is that, just like when I started learning French and it mostly just screwed up my Spanish for a while, Hebrew has screwed up my Arabic. I said qaṣadtī the other day, basically conjugating the Arabic verb qaṣada according to a Hebrew pattern.

I'd like to be doing more with Urdu. I like to read something from an Urdu reader before sleeping; finished Gopi Chand Narang's Readings in Literary Urdu Prose and have been reading an Urdu newspaper reader. I'll pick up a novel or some short stories after I finish this one. I downloaded Tandem to try to find some language partners to practice speaking with.

[eskandar]

Urdu: Finished Mumtaz Ahmad's Urdu Newspaper Reader. I watched Daawat-e-Ishq which had an exceptionally stupid plot (even considering the genre) but otherwise had some things going for it: good songs, set in my two favorite Indian cities, attention to food and language. It made me wanderlust for Deccani (Hyderabadi Urdu). I might watch some parts of it again without subtitles. Any tips/best practices for using media like this? I'll try to practice my listening comprehension and do a bit of sentence mining as well.

Also watched this interview with the two main actors, which didn't end up being very interesting...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0WQdPAq7ts

[eskandar]

colonia - neighborhood

In El Salvador, a colonia is specifically a walled neighborhood with a modicum of collectively paid security. I suspect it
might also mean that in Mexico too. A "neighborhood" is referred to as a barrio or vecindario instead.

I thought of this today when I learned another usage of colonia in Mexico, specifically along the US-Mexico border.

[Ser]

colonia - neighborhood

In El Salvador, a colonia is specifically a walled neighborhood with a modicum of collectively paid security. I suspect it
might also mean that in Mexico too. A "neighborhood" is referred to as a barrio or vecindario instead.

I thought of this today when I learned another usage of colonia in Mexico, specifically along the US-Mexico border.

In El Salvador, everybody tries to live inside colonias, including, in fact I say especially, those who are better off economically.

What that article calls a colonia is referred to as a zona marginal in Salvadoran Spanish.

Funny how I happened to log in today after many months of inactivity.

[eskandar]

Arabic: All of the sudden I'm back in the mood to study classical Arabic. I got really excited about the recommendations here because I love the traditional methods of teaching/studying Arabic - it's fun to geek out over the intricacies of ṣarf and naḥw. I decided to start with the lessons on the introduction to al-Ajrumiyya:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzIzySwC8uk&list=PLzGDUA_GfltXkkdq6j5WH98q-4Uy461hB&index=1

I've just done the first lesson and I plan to slowly work through all of them. The teacher is fantastic. I can follow just about every single word, partially because he's a great communicator and breaks down the harder Arabic terms by explaining them in simple Arabic. The lessons are on the commentary al-tuḥfa al-saniyya, so I ordered a hard copy.

I also found this Advanced Arabic Literary Reader for Students of Modern Standard Arabic, which looks promising. I'm excited to start this as well.

I feel like I'm at the point where if I put in some solid work, I can break through into much more confident reading of natural Arabic texts. (Meanwhile Hebrew is still messing with my Arabic production. Today I said shū ṣār ha-yom? )

[Linguaphile]

colonia - neighborhood

In El Salvador, a colonia is specifically a walled neighborhood with a modicum of collectively paid security. I suspect it
might also mean that in Mexico too. A "neighborhood" is referred to as a barrio or vecindario instead.

I thought of this today when I learned another usage of colonia in Mexico, specifically along the US-Mexico border.

The colonias described in that article are along the US-Mexico border in the United States, not in Mexico, and that usage of the word colonia is English (and sometimes border Spanish, influenced by the English usage), not Mexican Spanish. In Mexico, just like in El Salvador, such a place would be called a zona marginal.
In Mexico the word is not so specific to a particular socioeconomic level and does not have any negative (or positive) connotation. I suppose the only assumption that can be made if someone says they live in a colonia in Mexico is that they live in a city as opposed to a small town or rural area. It can be a walled neighborhood (in Mexico that meaning of "colonia" is becoming more common, but it's actually the newer meaning); it's also just a neighborhood of a city, walled or not. Large cities are divided into colonias. I should add that colonias are official divisions of the city; the colonia name is part of the address. Maybe that's why they are only in large cities; when the city is so large that you need to further subdivide it for sorting mail and other such things, you get colonias. An envelope addressed to a recipient in a large city in Mexico would have the recipient's name followed by the street and building number, followed by the colonia, followed by the postal code and then the city. So it's a neighborhood or district with very official, defined boundaries, in a large city.

[voron]

because I love the traditional methods of teaching/studying Arabic - it's fun to geek out over the intricacies of ṣarf and naḥw

I like digging into details too, but when I tried learning the grammar using the Arabic terminology, it turned to be too confusing. All those maful bihi, majrur, majzum etc are too difficult to memorize in comparison with familiar terms like indirect object, genitive case or conjunctive mood.

[vijayjohn]

If you're getting interested in Dakhini, then maybe I can finally lure you into Ankur. (It doesn't even have all that much Dakhini in it! Some of the villagers in the movie are really hard to understand, though, especially men talking to each other).

Also can you give me some feedback in the Persian study group?