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Bosnian/Croatian - Good Evening | ||
Tags: Serbo-Croatian | Dialect | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 19 30 December 2011 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
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My Spoken World Croatian book says good evening is dobra večer. (So does Google Translate, btw.) My Bosnian friend corrected me the other day, though, saying it was dobro veče. I can see a dialectal difference with the final r, but it seems really odd that the languages are so close (virtually the same, from what I've been able to tell) that there would be a gender difference here. Is this common? Does anyone know where I could find out what other words to watch out for that would mimic this? My original intent in learning BCS was to learn Bosnian, as I have a lot of friends who speak it. There's virtually no self-study materials for Bosnian, though, and it was my understanding that Bosnian was basically the same as the štokavian (standard) dialect of Croatian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 19 30 December 2011 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recommend these books -- http://www.bcsgrammarandtextbook.org/
They deal with all three languages at once, offering dialogues in all three. Up to you to choose the one you are interested in. A friend of mine also wanted to learn Bosnian and after a lot of research, this was the best we could find. There is hardly anything on Bosnian alone. A few people have critiqued them in other threads as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 19 30 December 2011 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Arekkusu. Our local library has both these books, and I actually considered using them when I was looking for BSC resources, but they look relatively complicated. Not that they can't be useful, of course.
I was planning to work my way through the Spoken World Croatian (by Living Language) and the Serbo-Croat Sans Peine books first, to get a solid foundation in the language, then checking those two books out. I'm approaching it with the knowledge that I'm dealing with three languages/dialects, and I realize there are some differences, but I'm focusing more on a passive understanding than active skills right now, which is my general approach to learning languages, anyways. It seems that Bosnian and the standard dialect of Croatian are virtually identical in almost all aspects, and I haven't found any other differences besides this in my studies so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 19 30 December 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Occasionally, in that book, the Bosnian and Croatian dialogues were together, in opposition to the Serbian one (2 dialogues instead of 3), so I think you are right. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 19 30 December 2011 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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They actually have four (at least in some spots). The Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian with the Latin alphabet, and the Serbian with the Cyrillic alphabet. It's just too much for a newbie brain to handle. Once I have a decent grasp on the language itself, I will probably go back to it and learn the specific differences, but for now, I think I will stick to something slightly less complicated, I think. =)
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 6 of 19 30 December 2011 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think you'd get used to it quickly. I wouldn't recommend learning a different dialect if you are aiming for another one.
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| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 19 30 December 2011 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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From what I understand, Bosnian and (standard) Croatian are virtually identical, so I don't think it really matters so much, in this case. It's more of a political/ethnic distinction than a linguistics one.
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| Danac Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5346 days ago 162 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Russian, Esperanto | Message 8 of 19 30 December 2011 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Having been a student of the BCS languages for a couple of years, I feel like I should
explain how I see this situation. I'll address the concern in the OP first. The gender-shifting veče/večer is pretty much the only example I can think of in the BCS languages. It's not really a major concern. More importantly, however, I'd like to give my opinion on the differences between Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian. Formally, Bosnian and Croatian are both Ijekavian, so the words with the OCS jat become je/ije, as opposed to Ekavian Serbian. (Mlijeko - mleko - Milk, vidjeti - videti - to see). What I object to is calling the languages identical. I'd say they are similar to the degree that basically any Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian or Montenegrin person can understand each other without major problems. Incidentally, I think more of it as being one language with different varieties, but due to politics and whatnot, people from the region would probably never agree to calling it that. What makes the languages different? Well, it's basically a question of different vocabulary use. It's not so difficult with standard Croatian and standard Serbian, they have their words that they use, but when it comes to Bosnian, it can go either way. You already encountered one difference: Bosnians say "Dobro veče" (same as Serbian), not "Dobra večer". The word for family in Croatian is "Obitelj" (f.), but Bosnians mostly use "Porodica", like in Serbian. Garlic is "Beli/Bijeli Luk" in Serbian and Bosnian, but "Češnjak" in standard Croatian. There are plenty of other examples like this, too many to mention, in fact. It's not only about using Serbian words, sometimes the preferred term is Croatian instead. The term for island is "Otok" in Bosnian and Croatian, but "Ostrvo" in Serbian, etc. Specifically for Bosnian, there are also plenty of Turkisms (Turcizmi) which might be used at a whim. Some are part of the official language, but most are part of the spoken language. They also tend to be plentiful in Sevdalinke (Bosnian folk songs). With this general confusion, how does one know which term is preferred in Bosnian? Well, since there are hardly any books available for Bosnian, the only way of knowing is to ask a Bosnian, but even then there might be some variation. So, there is some difference between the BCS languages, but as a beginning student, I wouldn't worry too much. Learning Croatian is as good as anything for building a solid base, but if the goal is to speak with Bosnians, I'd get the BCS textbook eventually, since it does in fact address the issue of different vocabulary usage in each of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. From personal experience, I've spoken what I consider to be Bosnian in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, and despite my somewhat lacking skills, people have generally understood me without major problems, pa ne brini se! 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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