Meera

I like Premchand a lot, my favorite is Shatranj Ke Khiladi. I like his style of writting.

मुझे बॉलीवुड फ़िल्में पसंद है. मेरी फेवरेट फिल्म "कहानी", "दिल से", "दे डर्टी पिक्चर", "३ इडियट्स", "जब वे मेट" और "देवदास" हैं. असल में, मुझको बहुत फ़िल्में पसंद हैं. मैं सोचती हूँ की विद्या बालन सबसे अच्छी एक्ट्रेस है, लेकिन मैं सोचती हूँ की करीना कपूर, रानी मुकर्जी और दीपिका पदुकोने भी अच्छी हैं. ज़रूर, अमितभ बच्चन, शाहरुख़ खान, आमिर खान सब कुछ अच्छे हैं! कल रात मैंने "घनचक्कर" देखा। अच्छी फिल्म है, विद्या बालन और इमरान हाश्मी के परफॉरमेंस कमाल थे!

Haha Salaam Alaikum Joedirt!, No I don't speak Arabic fluently. I took it at university for four years but I'm no where near fluent.

Yeah but some people are more interested in the dialects that's why I posted it here. Also most universities teach either Egyptian/Levantine along with MSA (they usually use a popular book called "Al kitaab," which teaches MSA along with these two dialects ), so people who are studying formal Arabic may be interested in the dialects also.

Yeah a lot of words were passed from Persian and Arabic into Hindi. The phrase Shadi-Shuda which is widely used in Hindi comes from Persian. Maybe not the "shadi"part but shuda comes from the Persian verb "shodan" to become. I know some "purist" Hindi speakers will try to substitute the Persian words for Sanskritic ones, for example they will say "pustak" for book instead of "kitaab" but I don't think it's that common.

I studied Hindi by myself (and Ironically it's my best foreign language after English) and Bengali also by myself. But I took French and Arabic in school. All other languages I tried to learn have been on my own (and I wasn't so successful at it ).

Yeah for me it is a hobby but I eventually would love to work doing something with languages but I think the prospects of that isn't very good.

These are really good ones! Thanks for sharing them.

That's about all the Tamil I know

Fun with Arabic http://www.funwitharabic.com/ Writing Arabic http://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/arabic/alphabet/index.html Speak 7 Arabic http://arabic.speak7.com/ Babel Arabic http://i-cias.com/babel/arabic/index.htm

These are courses/websites to learn the various Arabic dialects Syrian Colloquial Arabic Course http://www.syrianarabic.com/ DLI Egyptian https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20courses/Egyptian%20Arabic/ Speak Moroccan http://www.speakmoroccan.com/ Gulf Arabic http://www.gulfarabic.com/ FSI Courses- It has Levantine and Saudi http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Arabic ABC Lebanese http://www.abcleb.com/ AREG http://arabic.colegioo.com/ (This has MSA and Egyptian) Lebanese Arabic Learning Material http://web.archive.org/web/20091028050420/http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/~eldada/arabic.html

Arabic Online http://www.arabiconline.eu/ Madinah Arabic http://www.madinaharabic.com/ Arabic Class http://www.arabicclass.com/ DLI MSA course https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI%20basic%20courses/MSA/Basic%20Course/

Technically standard Urdu gets it's higher vocabulary from Persian and Arabic while Hindi gets it from Sanskrit. However I think a lot songs use Persian-y Urdu because it often sounds more poetic. In my experience many Hindi speakers can understand the higher Urdu vocabulary (I guess from songs) but Urdu speakers can't understand the higher Hindi vocabulary. I don't think Hindi speakers use these higher Urdu vocabulary in everyday speech. (I could be wrong) But when I watch Hindi serials and news programs I don't hear them. However, if the show revolves around Muslims, for example the show "Qabool Hai" I often hear more Persian words.

I'm not sure about the bank situation but I think they should have a Hindi option. However I see online especially in the youtube comments and on forums that Hindi and Urdu speakers always transliterate the Hindi/Urdu and I wish they would use the script more.

I like using Namaste. Although my Indian friends laugh at me when I use it because they say "it's so formal"

Yeah I'm glad the government doesn't force Hindi on the southern states like Tamil Nadu, I think it is awesome India has so many languages and encourages their regional languages. So many countries try to oppress their regional and minority languages.

I think it is Khaleeji, because I think they are only ones who use g for qaf but I've heard people in the Maghreb region switch between gaf/qaf too so I'm not sure.

Thank you, Linguaholic

Even though I haven't learned it fully, I'm going to say Hindi is the easiest for me, I think just because I like the language a lot and I am motivated to learn it. I learned English when I was very young and first move here, so it was very easy for me to pick up.

This site is amazing! Thanks so much for sharing it! This site makes me want to start Japanese now

Hey Kristi, if you are not interested in writing Japanese at the moment I suggest an audio course called, "Speak Japanese", it only focuses on speaking and uses everything in romaji. It comes with three or four cds with a tiny booklet with the transcriptions. I think it is quite fun to use too: http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Japanese-Confidence-Three-Audio/dp/0071664637/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1380132223&sr=8-14&keywords=speak+japanese There is also "Get started in Japanese" which teaches basic Japanese also using romaji, it comes with two audio cds but you can also get the book without the audio. I haven't finished the book yet but from what I have gone up to it's good. There is also "Complete Japanese" by the same company, that uses romaji but also teaches the scripts but I think that course goes up to intermediate. I have it also but have only used a couple chapters and it seemed pretty good even for a beginner. http://www.amazon.com/Get-Started-Japanese-Two-Audio/dp/0071749780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380132329&sr=8-1&keywords=Get+Started+in+Japanese http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Japanese-Two-Audio-CDs/dp/0071747850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380132651&sr=8-1&keywords=Complete+Japanese If you want to seriously study Japanese, I suggest getting Genki, I actually was signed up for a Japanese class a couple years ago and it ended getting canceled but I got the book before hand, and decided to keep it in case I took it again and the book was Genki. Again I haven't finished it but it is really good if you want to go really deep into Japanese. However after a couple of chapters it just uses the scripts. http://www.amazon.com/GENKI-Integrated-Elementary-Japanese-Edition/dp/4789014401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380132716&sr=8-1&keywords=Genki There is also a new course by Living Language for Japanese, I don't have it for Japanese, I have it for Arabic, but I really like it. It is setup like a workbook and has tons of audio. http://www.amazon.com/Living-Language-Japanese-Complete-Edition/dp/0307478653/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380132809&sr=8-1&keywords=Living+Language+Japanese I'm no expert in Japanese and I really don't know much about the language but I hope this helped a little. :grin:

I haven't started Korean, but it's on my very long list of languages I love KPOP, and Korean dramas and I also like some Korean movies. Here in Philadelphia we get two free Korean channels and for some reason I really like watching them and I like how Korean sounds.

Yeah and I have noticed in simple sentenced they like to drop the "to be" verb. Like "ini ke?" "Ini amar baba" lol

This is true with any most languages But I like Delhi Hindi and Mumbai Hindi. I like Delhi Hindi because that's the dialect my books teach and I like Mumbai Hindi because I think it sounds cool and funny

Yeah I think so too :(Maybe they just don't want people in the south to get upset if they support Hindi?