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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3999 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 1 of 14 24 September 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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A new log, a new language.
Not just any language, but Maltese. A language that sounds like a mix of Arabic, English, and Italian. It's not a very well-known language and it's only spoken in Malta, a tiny island country that I've never been to. But Maltese is a very beautiful language and quickly becoming my second favorite language (German will always be my first love). Because of this materials to learn it are few and far in-between and finding explanations of some of the grammar points is next to impossible. However, I've taken it upon myself to learn this island tongue. Here are the materials I'll be using: Free Sources: http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/other-language/?q=mal tese http://aboutmalta.com/language/maltesegrammar.htm http://aboutmalta.com/language/engmal.htm#w http://www.ebook3000.com/Learn-Maltese--Why-Not-_44055.html https://ia801707.us.archive.org/35/items/TeachYourselfMaltes eJosephAquilina/MALTESE.pdf http://www.maltapoetry.com/poeti.htm I know that several Maltese natives and another learner on Duolingo has applied to make a Maltese course so hopefully that will come to fruition. Saħħna! (Goodbye!) Edited by Tollpatchig on 30 September 2014 at 4:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 2 of 14 24 September 2014 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was in Tunisia we heard that Derja (Tunisian Arabic, a dialect with a lot of
Berber influences) and Malteses were essentially the same language, but for political and cultural reasons Derja was considered Arabic while Maltese was a separate language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 3 of 14 24 September 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting! IT's definitely in my hitlist. I will follow your log closely. There are several books on Maltese, though I don't know if any of them has audio.
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| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3999 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 4 of 14 24 September 2014 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
It's interesting that you say that because looking at the comments of videos on YouTube that are in Maltese a lot of people are saying "This sounds just like Tunisian Arabic!" Now I know why :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3999 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 5 of 14 25 September 2014 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Not knowing how to pronounce the words is frustrating. Well I have an idea of how they should sound but exampled would be really nice. Forvo unfortunately has so little in the way of Maltese recordings.
A little interesting fact is that the personal pronouns double as "to be". So for example: Jien (or Jiena) means both "I" and "I am" Int (or Inti) means both "You" and "you are" Etc, etc. I'm not too sure exactly how to come to get the different conjugations in Maltese because the changes all seem so random! It's like whenever I notice a pattern with conjugating one verb, another verb doesn't follow the pattern at all. However I know that you get the negative form by adding either 'ma' or "m'" to the front of the word and an 'x'. This seems to be a pretty stable way of forming the negative. Naturally "to be" is irregular: Jien becomes m'ieniex (I'm not) Int becomes m'intix (You're not) Jien it-tuffieħa I am an apple. (literally "the apple") M'ieniex it-tuffieħa I am not an apple I've also recently found out that one of my sources, Teach Yourself Maltese, is out-of-date. Normally, I'd ditch something out of date but with so few resources I'm not sure if it would be a wise idea or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3999 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 6 of 14 26 September 2014 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I've started doing the Future tense for "to be". Much easier to pronounce and remember than the present negative form. It too is very different from the other forms. Not sure at this point if it's just because it's the verb "to be" (which is irregular in so many languages it's not even funny) or if Maltese is just like that. Anyways, I was able to puzzle out a few prepositions from the descriptions of the Maltese SBS podcast (the ONLY podcast I can find in Maltese language, imagine listening to the same 20 episodes over and over and over) with the English underneath it.
ma = with dwar = about minn = by (as in: by the Kite Group) u = and This information with more prepositions is available on Wikitionary but for me vocabulary is better when either learned in context or in an interesting way such as Memrise. Well with these new words under my belt I can come up with more "complex" sentences. Jiena ma il-karfus (or should it be Jiena m'il-karfus? since 'ma'is before a word that starts with a vowel) I am with the celery. (It makes no sense but the formation is what counts) Also I've noticed that speaking Maltese has almost (only almost) made roll my Rs. Rs are typically rolled in Maltese but I don't think it matters too much if you can't but sometimes the words seem to force you do so. Interesting. Edited by Tollpatchig on 26 September 2014 at 1:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4631 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 7 of 14 26 September 2014 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
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A fascinating language you have chosen there! I remember I bought Teach Yourself Maltese many many years ago to get an idea about the language, but I never did any serious studying.
As for listening to the language, maybe you could try Radioline? If you go into the section discover and select By country, then you will find Malta under Europe, and there are 12 radio stations to choose from. I just randomly clicked on a few, and they certainly speak Maltese, so at least you can get used to hearing the language as it is spoken. I'll follow your log with interest. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tollpatchig Senior Member United States Joined 3999 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Maltese | Message 8 of 14 26 September 2014 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
@ Ogrim: Thanks for the link to Radioline. It's not available for my current phone but I plan on buying a new (more current) phone with a new carrier when I get my first paycheck. I've made an account though and I'm enjoying it on my computer right now! @ Everyone: I also wanted to take this time to say that I'll be talking about German too in this log. I'd rather just have one log since I'm only focusing in on two languages at a time. German and Maltese in this blog and then Dutch and Danish (when I start those two in a more official way) in another. I feel that would be best for me. German: I'm really working on improving vocabulary. I'm doing this by using courses on Memrise. I've also started doing a Basic Bavarian course on there. It to has no sound :( but I doing it to kind of scratch my itch for learning some Bavarian. The language is both the same and very different. I love listening to it spoken here is a small example of the differences, straight from the course: The man is handsome Der Mann ist schön. Da Mo is schee. A good woman. Eine gute Frau. A guade Frau The girl is not ugly. Das Mädchen ist nicht hässlich. As Madl is ned hässli. So as you can see, it's an interesting language (or should I call it a dialect?). I know that dialects can differ from village to village, so I'm wondering where is this particular brand of Bavarian being spoken? I'm thinking probably in Munich or another large city. Maltese: I've learned the numbers in Maltese but it might have been in vain. Listening to Maltese radio no one seems to use the Maltese way of counting XD they count and say the numbers in English. BTW, in case you didn't know English is one of the official language of Malta having replaced Italian a long while ago. This makes me worry, because I wonder if Maltese language will die out there since English is, for right now, the lingua franca. That's another reason why I want to learn it so bad. Even though I'm not Maltese, or even European, I feel the need to try to help preserve this awesome language. When I get advanced in the language, I plan on making a blog or something to teach it. There are so few resources so I'd want to try to add more out there. Edited by Tollpatchig on 26 September 2014 at 4:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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