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M. Obama: "butterfly" in 20 languages

  Tags: Multilingual
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
Hashimi
Senior Member
Oman
Joined 6260 days ago
362 posts - 529 votes 
Speaks: Arabic (Written)*
Studies: English, Japanese

 
 Message 9 of 36
21 March 2011 at 1:41pm | IP Logged 

CaucusWolf wrote:
If you think that this is interesting you might find this to be as
well. The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to learn at least one word
of Arabic to create understanding of the Arab world. Go to Understandingcampaign.org for
more info.


The funny thing is that it seems that this guy did not UNDERSTAND the right pronunciation
of the word UNDERSTANDING in Arabic. It is not pronounced (fuh-hem). It is (fahm).

(fuh-hem) = He understood.


1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
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Norway
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Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
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 Message 10 of 36
21 March 2011 at 1:46pm | IP Logged 
As a kid I wrote a paper on butterflies, and one of my "things" was precisely to show the diversity of the word for butterfly in the few languages I knew at that time. I remembers getting extra points for that.

In Norwegian the word is sommerfugl, which means "summer bird".

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CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5273 days ago
191 posts - 234 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 11 of 36
22 March 2011 at 3:35am | IP Logged 
Hashimi wrote:

CaucusWolf wrote:
If you think that this is interesting you might find this to be as
well. The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to learn at least one word
of Arabic to create understanding of the Arab world. Go to Understandingcampaign.org for
more info.


The funny thing is that it seems that this guy did not UNDERSTAND the right pronunciation
of the word UNDERSTANDING in Arabic. It is not pronounced (fuh-hem). It is (fahm).

(fuh-hem) = He understood.


Well in my opinion you can't use the English alphabet to write Arabic anyways. Fuh-hem and fahm sound similar, so it's an easy mistake.   As for the religous questions, look them up yourself by using reliable sources. You'll notice the questions will vary just like in any religion because there are different views. Also, please note that there are a large number Christians as well as other faiths in the Arab world. The Arab World should not be synonymous with Islam.

Edited by CaucusWolf on 22 March 2011 at 4:07am
1 person has voted this message useful



Darklight1216
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 12 of 36
25 March 2011 at 1:19am | IP Logged 
Abdalan wrote:

You may have a point there, Darklight1216. Of course, the focus is not the very word
butterfly she cited, but to know at least a little of 20 languages. فهم - to refer to
CaucusWolf's hint.

I started to think, however, about those "relatively useless" words you mentioned. What
would be those unnecessary? Maybe 'zuchetto' would be one of them as I'm not religious,
but not 'ullage' as I appreciate wine, or 'dongle' due the fact I do use the Cubase
software, but of course that may be taken as kind of hogwash for most people (it's more
unusual to encounter an unfamiliar verb than an unfamiliar noun).

What words would you consider "relatively useless"? Probably words you expect you'll
never see or hear anywhere else except the dictionary - some words are useless because
they're highly specialized. I wouldn't dare list butterfly among them, would you?

I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. Basically I meant that I'd rather learn words that I am likly to use in normal conversations. Obviously, some people may talk about their favorite creepy crawly everyday, so that might be useful to them which is why I added the word "relative."

leosmith wrote:
CaucusWolf wrote:
The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to learn at least one word of Arabic
to create understanding of the Arab world.

Is "jihad" acceptable?

I don't see why not. Now what the response would be if some organization wished for everyone in the world to learn an English word like... say "freedom" for instance.
CaucusWolf wrote:

Well in my opinion you can't use the English alphabet to write Arabic anyways. Fuh-hem and fahm sound similar, so it's an easy mistake.   As for the religous questions, look them up yourself by using reliable sources. You'll notice the questions will vary just like in any religion because there are different views. Also, please note that there are a large number Christians as well as other faiths in the Arab world. The Arab World should not be synonymous with Islam.


To me that's kind of like saying that France shouldn't be synonmous with the French language because lots of other languages are spoken there.

Edited by Darklight1216 on 25 March 2011 at 1:27am
1 person has voted this message useful



CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5273 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 13 of 36
25 March 2011 at 1:54am | IP Logged 
Darklight1216 wrote:

To me that's kind of like saying that France shouldn't be synonmous with the French language because lots of other languages are spoken there.


The Arab World refers to all Arab countries and because there is a whole country called Lebanon which is mainly Christian, you can't make it synonymous with Islam. Unlike your analogy there isn't huge concentrations of people speaking one language besides French in France. Furthermore, just because Americans speak English doesn't mean the words English and America are synonymous with eachother.

Edited by CaucusWolf on 25 March 2011 at 1:57am
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anothername
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Brazil
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 Message 14 of 36
25 March 2011 at 2:11am | IP Logged 
Darklight1216 wrote:
When I think the Arabic language, the first country that comes to mind is Saudi Arabia. That is a country, that unless I'm mistaken (which is possible) does not even allow churches to be built on their land. They (and many other Arab contries) seem to want to give the impression that Arab world = Islam.

To me that's kind of like saying that France shouldn't be synonmous with the French language because lots of other languages are spoken there.


I really don't think that's a good analogy.

Actually, there are about 40 MILLIONS of christian arabs. This is a very large number, and, stretching a bit (which is perhaps acceptable, because it's likely that some christians hide when in more intolerant countries), it represents almost twice of the Saudi Arabia whole population...

Among France's languages other than french, even the most spoken one has less than
700.000 speakers. France is a very centralized country. Everybody/everything there gravitates around Paris, and the french language is said to be an essential part of the french identity.

Saudi Arabia is supposed to be quite different from the rest of the arab world. I don't see why one should see saudis as the most representative arabs. They have their sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, their desert, and a lot of oil, but, besides that, I don't think most arabs would feel comfortable being identified as saudis.
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CaucusWolf
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5273 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese

 
 Message 15 of 36
25 March 2011 at 2:24am | IP Logged 
CaucusWolf wrote:
Darklight1216 wrote:

To me that's kind of like saying that France shouldn't be synonmous with the French language because lots of other languages are spoken there.


The Arab World refers to all Arab countries and because there is a whole country called Lebanon which is mainly Christian, you can't make it synonymous with Islam. Unlike your analogy there isn't huge concentrations of people speaking one language besides French in France. Furthermore, just because Americans speak English doesn't mean the words English and America are synonymous with eachother.

I actually should have used the word synonym... Sorry about this confusion.
1 person has voted this message useful



Abdalan
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 Message 16 of 36
25 March 2011 at 2:34am | IP Logged 
Darklight1216 wrote:
I think you're missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.
Basically I meant that I'd rather learn words that I am likly to use in normal
conversations. Obviously, some people may talk about their favorite creepy crawly
everyday, so that might be useful to them which is why I added the word "relative."


Thank you. I see the forest now. I thought I read "I'd rather learn twenty
words in one language than one relatively useless word in twenty" (trees).
Being the word in question "butterfly", I wrongly thought that you were taking about
it. We agree with "I'd rather learn words that I am likly to use in
normal conversations" (forest).

Darklight1216 wrote:


leosmith wrote:
CaucusWolf wrote:
The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the
world to learn at least one word of Arabic to create understanding of the Arab world.

Is "jihad" acceptable?


I don't see why not. Now what the response would be if some organization wished for
everyone in the world to learn an English word like... say "freedom" for instance.


I wouldn’t be surprise if someone of this forum would ask "Is 'axis of evil'
acceptable?" as "butterfly" and “understanding” ends up in "jihad"

Darklight1216 wrote:
When I think the Arabic language, the first country that comes to
mind is Saudi Arabia. That is a country, that unless I'm mistaken (which is possible)
does not even allow churches to be built on their land. They (and many other Arab
contries) seem to want to give the impression that Arab world = Islam.


Edited (too late) by Darklight1216 on 25 March 2011 at 4:27am



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