261–270 of 318 posts
Somehow the sound of Arabic accents are quite harsh among all languages I know to my ears. Only German is somewhat harsh - I have a lot of pleasure with Rammstein the metal/rock band sound in German. I always thought metal music would sound quite nice in Several Arabic accents as opposed to let's say a softer language like Italian. In short metal/hard rock in Arabic would sound wonderful whereas in Italian not.
You can capture any sound/accent in Urdu. What I mean is you to take any word in any language and if you wanted to write it as-is in Urdu syntax, you can do so with 100% accuracy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love learning languages and learning about languages. I considered seriously learning Arabic but I eventually decided against it mainly because, as the parent points out, there seem to be many variations between countries and also between formal, literary arabic and the spoken dialects. Given that learning the language (in any form) is probably going to be a huge challenge the prospect of spending years studying th…
Even though there are many dialects, nobody will misunderstand you. And, beyond that, it’s easy for everyone to shift to using a more formal Arabic in order to communicate with you.
Urdu is a language which I speak and admire - for the reason that the Hindi-Persian mix along with the Persian syntax/alphabet gives it the ultimate flexibility. You can capture any sound/accent in Urdu. What I mean is you to take any word in any language and if you wanted to write it as-is in Urdu syntax, you can do so with 100% accuracy.
The Persian alphabet seems to be lacking some vowels. How is that handled when writing Urdu?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same in Polish, with some curse words providing very flexible bases for every situation.
Do you know of a resource that shows pictograms for Polish like the one the parent shows? My partner is Polish and I’m slowly acquiring the language, butI have always struggled to visualise the meanings of the Polish equivalent prefixes
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. First rule of languages: Languages are not logic. If somebody tells you that their mother tongue is more logical than language X, it's in most cases just bias of the native speaker who is not aware of the difficulties. Second rule of languages: There are no easy or hard languages. Whether a language is easy or difficult to learn, depends entirely on the languages you already speak (and, of course, the environmen…
> a difficult writing system has also a negative impact on speaking skills because it hinders you from quickly extending your vocabulary by reading books etc. True enough. I learned two of the languages I know by reading books (after starting with magazines etc). I never used a dictionary - not once. Because when you finally associate a word with its meaning, through understanding, you don't forget it, unlike with a…
Interesting...how long did it take you to become proficient? And does proficiency in speech your reading ability?
Urdu is a language which I speak and admire - for the reason that the Hindi-Persian mix along with the Persian syntax/alphabet gives it the ultimate flexibility. You can capture any sound/accent in Urdu. What I mean is you to take any word in any language and if you wanted to write it as-is in Urdu syntax, you can do so with 100% accuracy.
Well, except for all the tonal languages, such as Chinese (Urdu has no tonal system). And the various Caucasus languages such as Ubyhk, which has over 80 phonemes (Urdu has 48).
But your point is well-taken, which is that Urdu is a phonetically-rich language.
Somehow the sound of Arabic accents are quite harsh among all languages I know to my ears. Only German is somewhat harsh - I have a lot of pleasure with Rammstein the metal/rock band sound in German. I always thought metal music would sound quite nice in Several Arabic accents as opposed to let's say a softer language like Italian. In short metal/hard rock in Arabic would sound wonderful whereas in Italian not.
Arabic is the language of poetry, so don't let how it sounds deceive you ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a typical Brit who mostly just speaks English, and have over 50 countries on 6 continents under my belt, I've never been to a country that had Spanish as an official language. In a given year the languages that would help me are Russian, Mandarin, and Arabic. French in some parts of Africa (and France/Belgium of course). In places like India and Kenya, I follow conversations with the locals as they generally speak…
Just because Spanish isn't an official language in the US doesn't make it less useful. The US is the second largest Spanish speaking nation in the world, behind Mexico. There are a number of careers in the US where speaking Spanish is very useful, especially when you interact a lot with people (e.g., medicine & sales). Every major US market is served by at least two Spanish speaking TV stations over the air. And if y…
If you're outside the US you might think that Spanish is relegated to the areas near the border, but no: I have driven through towns in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania and seen stores with signs exclusively in Spanish; I have hitchhiked through Aurora, Illinois and encountered wandering mariachi bands making their way to a quinceañera; the alley behind my apartment in Massachusetts is filled nightly with the excited Spanish exclamations of children at play.
By no means is Spanish strictly required to enjoy the US, but it will give you insight into enormous US subcultures that many won't ever appreciate.
Arabic's grammar system should also be fascinating for any computer scientist. The majority of MSA vocabulary is generated by predictably transforming "root strings" of 2, 3 or 4 letters. Beyond just English style conjugation, this means that every verb can predictably be transformed into a set of nouns, every noun can be traced back to to its original root verb (the same for adjectives and adverbs). For example Root…
It's certainly interesting in theory. But in practice, how do you distinguish between a bookshop, library, office and desk when all of those things can be referred to by "maktab"? And does inferring / generating words this way actually work? For example, can I say "makra" (مقرأ) for "Library", a place where you read? Based on the verb "yakra" (read).
Bookshop: matjar/dukkan (shop/store) kutub (books)
Library: maktaba
Office: maktab
Desk: maktab
The difference between office and desk is found from context.
