Meera
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Posts posted by Meera
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I really like how a lot of sayings seem to have universal themes throughout the world, like "biting off more than you can chew", keeping your mouth shut if you don't know what you're talking about, and being a "Jack of all trades" (knowing a little about a lot).
Some of these idioms seem confusing out of context though, and I can't seem to guess what some of them mean in relation to life-lessons. Can anyone help explain what these sayings mean?
"Who has ever seen a peacock dance in the woods?"
"What does the monkey know of the taste of ginger?"
They are very intriguing, but I don't understand them.
Thanks for sharing these!
I'm not one hundred percent on this but I will try. The first one means something that everything good has to be made public, or everything has to be acclaimed by people to make it good.
The second one means like trying to make someone appreciate something they don't understand. It can also be used for someone without refined tastes who cant taste a fine thing.
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Yes I have very high anxiety when speaking a second language. I get so nervous when speaking Hindi, because I'm afraid I will make a mistake or sound awful, actually I have this with all languages I try to speak.
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I usually study at home but I really like studying at a café, I usually go to Barnes and Nobel to study and sometimes the library. I hate studying at home because I can never get focused and my family is too loud!
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Hi, I heard that there is a classical Arabic and standard Arabic, for those who are fluent in Arabic out there, aside from sharing your thoughts on how to begin learning Arabic, can you please recommend which one of these two is the best Arabic to learn?
I am currently working here in Saudi Arabia and I need to learn this language in order to make life and work easy while I am still here.
Thank you in advance guys!
Learn Standard Arabic, that is the kind that it is written on signs and newspapers. Plus most course books teaches Modern Standard Arabic. I think that in Saudi Arabia most people will understand you if you speak Modern Standard Arabic but you can also take a look at this book that focus on Saudi Arabic:
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Arabic Saudi
I think learning Modern Standard would be your best bet though.
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KeyHole TV is a program which allows you to stream live Japanese TV channels such as TV Asahi, TV Tokyo, NHK, TBS live from anywhere in the world. The resolution is meant for 4:3 aspect ratio or square type screen though so the quality is sub par if you maximize the screen on a 16:9 or widescreen monitor (which I assume everyone use nowadays). It is technically free as it allows you to watch for free for limited time (30-40 minutes I believe) after which the program automatically closes down and you will have to execute the program again to watch your favorite show for another 30 minutes or so for free before it closes again. You can already finish an entire episode of a jdrama without interruption with the allotted free time. :grin:
You can always buy the premium key for continuous watching for $5 for 30 days.
This is great! Thanks so much.
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These links are both great!! Thanks!! Oh... I mean Arigato :angel:
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I would definitely go for amazon because it promotes your book for you, people can leave reviews and can download the book right into their kindle. I know many people who have done very well on amazon with self publishing.
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Thanks 13Vinylinfants!
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Thanks Miya and Daimashin I will definitely check out those sites! :grin:
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शुक्रिया, SpiralArchtiect!
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I'm not a linguist so I'm not an expert. But I will say you can definitely tell it is an Indo-European and there similarities to English. Many words are similar to Indo-European languages and English, for example: नाम (name), बद (bad) I think this comes from Persian but it's used when something is bad, for example बदसूरत (badsurat) is ugly and बदनाम (badnam) means infamous. नाक (naak) is the word for nose, which isn't very dissimilar word, दांत (dant) is the word for tooth which is connected to dental, दस (das) ten which is connected to decimal and मन (man) means mind and is related to the English word. I'm not going to list them but there are tons of other words like this too, so you can definitely see a huge connection between Hindi and other Indo-European languages, you just have to get more into the vocabulary and you will start to see it.
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Either or would be good just anyway I can hear Japanese being spoken
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I have never used the book so I'm not sure if it's good. If your looking for a good grammar the Usha Jain books and the Routledge are probably the best. The Ernest Bender grammar seems to be available on amazon though.
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I hope this is the right place to put this topic. But I was wondering if anyone had any links that has streaming Japanese TV?
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Are there any sites online that teach Cyrillic for free? It would be a very useful script to learn.
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I agree Hedonologist, It's so frustrating for me because I'm obsessed with Hindi and it's my favorite language in the world and I love all the Indian languages and would love to learn them. I'm trying to learn Bengali and you would be amazed at how little there is for this language, even less then Hindi! It's very frustrating for learners. And many times even Hindi, Bengali etc speakers tell me I'm just wasting my time to learn it, since everyone speaks English. I think Hindi is a very underrated language, India has a booming economy, a gigantic film and entertainment industry, India attracts many tourists and there are many Indian's living abroad. I'm not fluent in Hindi yet, but I can read well in it and I've found it very rewarding to learn and not useless at all. I've used Hindi a lot here in the United States. Sorry this was kind of a rant but it is quite frustrating when trying to learn, I feel like if I was obsessed with Spanish, Japanese or Russian I'd probably be fluent already because of all the sources they have.
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Hey Sorry Hedonologist, I don't know any available here that that has a dictionary with it. But there are things like this:
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My favorite is Essential Hindi Grammar from Routledge:
But there is also a good series by Usha Jain however they are very hard to get:
And the R.S Mcgregor grammar:
There aren't that many Hindi Readers out there. I like the Usha Jain one a lot:
There is also a new one from Routledge:
I have a Premchand reader a reader for Hindi/Urdu called Hindu and Urdu Since 1800: A Common Read but I cant find these online
I hope this helps a little though
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It's a very hard question to answer. It really depends on the person. I would say it's safe to assume that most educated Arabs would know MSA but it really depends on the country. For example in Morroco you might have a better chance of getting around in French than MSA. But in the gulf countries MSA is probably understanable. I think it really depends, mots Arabs I've talked to have always told me to learn MSA and not mess with the dialects.
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That's great it works for you, Trellum. I can't stand pimsleur, it's just way too slow. But it is useful because you can take it on the go with you and it's great for prounciation.
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I only really use the duolingo app. But I use a lot of radio apps on my ipod to listen to radios in a foriegn language.
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I agree with the list mostly, except for livemocha and pimsuleur. Livemocha used to be very good until they changed everything. Pimsuleur I don't like at all. I think it is one of the most overated systems, it is too slow and when completing the course you will only know basic touristy phrases.
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Yes I do sometimes. Itkind of feels like you are taking on a new charecter.
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Np, the book is pretty good, considering there aren't many books for tamil
Any languages not worth learning?
in Language Learning
Posted
I think as long as you have a huge interest in the language it will be useful. If you really love that language you will find a use for it.