281–290 of 422 posts
Did they seriously go with dotless i, the character that is endless source of fun for any case mapping code. Would í have really been so bad? All the other accented characters are using ´ ffs.
Used dotless, dotted i all my life never had any problems. What endless source of fun are you talking about?
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I speak English only. I find it much easier to translate either online or via English-to-X dictionary if the other language uses Latin script. Could it be done? I'm sure it is possible, but without previously interacting with them, not easily. I'll say this, for work I travel to Montreal at moderately regular intervals. Because everything is in French, it makes it a bit harder, but I can either: a) infer based off si…
"infer based off similarities to English words" English and French are both originated from Latin languages so are similarities. Try to read Turkish web site: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/default.tr.mfa , will its Latin alphabet help you? The site has English version so you can compare.
"Munalbayeva Daurenbekovna, head of the National Academic Library" Butchered her name. Latin alphabet didn't help.
For the curious: Үмітхан Дәуренбекқызы Мұңалбаева, which I think is Úmithan Dáurenbekqyzy Muńalbaeva in the new alphabet.
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Honest question from a less than A1 level Russian student... Is there really a significant difference between the two? I have no doubt that there is different vocabulary etc. and of course that there are political reasons to count them as different languages but are they effectively mutually intelligible?
A friend of mine from Lviv tells me that Ukrainian language is closer in structure and vocabulary to Polish than to Russian. I can't really assess this information, as I speak only Polish, from these three.
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Come to Baltic states. Some people went as far as refusing to speak Russian during Soviet times. Now many young people don't speak Russian and don't even try to because of anti-Russian position. Personally I don't respond in Russian if I'm sure the person was born or lived here for decades. If they look like tourists, I try to help with few Russian words I know or ask if they speak English... Old good pointing at the…
Congrats, you are part of the problem. -Fellow soon-to-be Ex-Lithuanian.
I bet you're not moving to Russia either...
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https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C3%B4_%C4%90%C3%ACnh_Di%E1%... Can you make out anything in this article other than personal names?
In my experience, when I was in Vietnam I was able to read and understand menus and road signs fairly easy, despite not speaking a word of Vietnamese. I don't think that would've been the same if they used a non-latin alphabet.
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No, but a Latin alphabet would help a Turkish tourist in Kazakhstan.
Maybe not. The Latin alphabet that Kazakhstan is moving to, is deliberately far from the Turkish alphabet. A Turkish tourist would need to spend some time especially learning Kazakh’s new alphabet (plus, different sound values and loads of faux amis await him).
I'm ethnical Russian living in Kazakhstan and I think that it's not a very wise decision. As correctly written in the article, overwhelming majority of Kazakhstani citizens speak and write Russian well. I just don't see any point with this change, but costs are tremendous, you have to rewrite every single book including learning books, you have to replace every street plate. When overwhelming majority of people speak…
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> People have easier time learning English, and it eases the communication a lot Is this really so? Are you sure having a different alphabet would make it harder for people to learn a western language? I am Russian, and I can safely say that pretty much every literate adult in Russia who has at least a basic school education can read Latin letters just fine, because there is no way around it; the alphabet is taught a…
The Cyrillic alphabet is a major barrier to learning Russian for Americans. I can only imagine it makes Kazakh even more daunting. I don't think Cyrillic letters pervade American culture in quite the same way that Latin letters pervade Russian culture, so it's not quite the same.
If you're driven enough to even think about learning Kazakh then I imagine that a slightly different alphabet is not going to stop you. If my adventures with the Czech language are at all indicative then learning the rules around grammatical cases and being able to listen and parse the words in speech at "normal" speed are the real hurdles you'll need to overcome.