Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 25 of 76 24 February 2011 at 5:09pm | IP Logged |
I reached my least favorite part of any language in my Colloquial Persian book yesterday: everything involving numbers. It's hard enough for me to remember the basic cardinal numbers! This lesson doesn't even look really difficult, yet I cannot force myself to do the exercises.
I'm going to keep myself on track by typing some notes here:
first: اول
second: دوم
third: سوم
fourth: چهارم
... and so on.
half: نصف پولم - half of my money (nesf-e poolam)
half: نیم کیلو - half a kilo (nim kilo), نیم ساعت - half an hour (nim sa'at)
and a half: یک و نیم - one and a half, سی و هفت و نیم - thirty seven and a half
fractions: cardinal number followed by ordinal
یک دوم - one half, دو پنجم - two fifths, سه هفتم - three sevenths, هفت دوازدهم - seven twelfths
twice: دو بر
twice as much: دو برابر
thrice/three times: سه بر
three times as much: سه برابر
...and so on.
Off to start lesson #8 of Colloquial Persian! Oh, and 5 days until I leave for Malaysia.
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 26 of 76 28 February 2011 at 11:32pm | IP Logged |
Just a quick updated to say that I haven't studied. Some traumatic family events happened over the weekend, so between handling those and getting ready to go back to Malaysia, I've had no time to study.
On a more positive note, I leave for Malaysia tomorrow!
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ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian
| Message 27 of 76 01 March 2011 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
Pole sana. (<-- using Swahili here because I don't know the equivalent expression in Persian and can't think of one in English that doesn't sound overly formal)
I hope you can deal with your family stuff and feel better before you leave for Malaysia tomorrow. Don't worry about not studying, it's totally understandable!
سفر بخير دوستم جان! مالزى منتظر تو است
P.S. I hate numbers too! Luckily the numbers in Persian aren't too difficult (either that or the hundreds of drills Pimsleur had me doing for them worked) and not even the ordinal numbers are that bad. Only the first three are irregular. I still can't remember the Persian numerals (٠ ٩ ٨ ٧ ٦ ٥ ٤ ٣ ٢ ١) for the life of me though, and I've studied them at least three times already! You'd think that after memorizing hundreds of Japanese characters they wouldn't be a problem...
Edited by ellasevia on 01 March 2011 at 12:07am
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 28 of 76 01 March 2011 at 12:39am | IP Logged |
Thanks for going easy on me! I don't know how much these family issues can be handled (they are all medical), but I'm trying to stay positive and remember that in 3 days I'll see my fiancé again after 6 months apart. :D
Yeah, the numbers aren't bad. It's the "twice", "twice as much", "double", "two fold", etc. type of things that get to me. And the metric system, hehe.
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ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian
| Message 29 of 76 09 March 2011 at 9:25am | IP Logged |
Hi teammate! Did you make it to Malaysia alright? I imagine you've been very busy with your across-the-
world move, so I won't bother you about your Persian too much, but it'd be great to know how you're doing
if you get a chance.
خدا حافظ
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 30 of 76 22 March 2011 at 4:38am | IP Logged |
Hi! I am finally all settled in here. My parents visited for two weeks and they left on Friday, so now I actually have some time for myself. I will post a long update soon. First, I just want to say Happy Persian New Year! My in-laws sent me a picture of their haft sin table, complete with a picture of me in the middle. I was so flattered!
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 31 of 76 23 March 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
First of all, HAPPY NOROUZ - عید شما مبارک - EYDE SHOMA MOBARAK
This year, Norouz (the Persian New Year) occurred on Monday March 20th. Norouz is an old Persian holiday that has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years. Now, it is celebrated in countries all over the world. In Iran, students get 13 days off for Norouz!
Norouz is a long holiday with lots of great traditions. One of my favorites is Amoo Norouz (Uncle Norouz), a man who looks quite a bit like our Santa Claus. He comes and delivers Norouz gifts (eydi) to children. This year, I received cash and Ferrero Rocher chocolate as my eydi.
Another great tradition is the haft sin table. This table includes seven (haft) items that begin with the letter sin. These seven items are: sprouts growing in a dish, sweet pudding, sumac, apples, vinegar, garlic and senjed, a type of dried fruit. Wikipedia has pictures of some beautiful haft sin tables, including one from the USA's White House:
There are many other parts to Norouz, but I just wanted to write about my two favorites today. I'll leave you with some of my favorite Norouz songs. The first song is slow, but the rest are danceable!
Booye Eydi by Farhad
Eydiye Man Yadet Nare by Farzan
Amoo Norooz by Sattar
Eide Shoma Mobarak by Andy and Bijan Mortazavi
Shabe Eyd by Hayedeh
I hope everyone has a great new year!
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5446 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 32 of 76 25 March 2011 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
I have to start this entry with a confession: The reason I put my username in the title of my log is because I thought some people from Team É might get confused and read my log by mistake. Please tell me if this has worked out.
Phew! Glad I got that off my chest.
Being in Malaysia again has given me so many great opportunities to eavesdrop on Iranian tourists. Most of the things I hear are simple: "Khoshgele! Doostesh daram!" from a girl talking to her boyfriend about a dress ("It's pretty! I want it!"). Occasionally I hear things that hurt my feelings, like a girl asking her boyfriend "Why is she with him?" after staring at my fiancé and me. I am happy I can understand some things, though.
Right now I'm catching up on my flashcards in the hope that having a clean slate will motivate me to do some heavy studying. I'm also trying to enroll in a Bahasa Malaysia class that starts next month.
Oh and on a strange note: My local grocery store here in Malaysia has a haft sin table set up!
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