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Hamza and Ayn in Persian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LittleKey Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5950 days ago 146 posts - 153 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Japanese | Message 9 of 37 25 March 2009 at 1:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Really Vai, If you call someone a pussy and then say you mean it with all due respect, do you really mean it in a respectful way? I know you weren't speaking to me, but as a matter of fact I live in an area where I have several Persian friends, probably 20% of my high school is Persian, I hear Farsi every day, and I'm studying it so I can understand the words I hear ALMOST EVERY DAY. And I've never heard Arabic spoken in real life. And this is in Southern California, U.S.A. It's not like I'm in Iran. Where I am, learning Arabic would be several thousand times less useful in real life situations than Farsi is. And learning Farsi is connecting me to a whole new culture that I'm proud of getting to know more of. And how do you know that no one speaks Farsi wherever in Germany that Sprachfin is located? It could be similar to Southern California in that regard, for all you or anyone knows. So please think a little bit, and don't put down the 56,000,000 or so native Farsi speakers by saying their language is for pussies and is unimportant, because it's actually pretty hard to learn, and it's not hard to find a positive use for Farsi. It's all about respect. Sorry for mucking up your thread with that rant Sprachfin. It would definitely be easier to learn Farsi than Arabic, seeing as you have Iranian friends. I wish you luck with whatever you decide to learn, and if that happens to be Farsi, I have a good link for you (http://easypersian.com). It's been very helpful for me. I don't know much about the pronounciation difference, because I've only learned the Farsi version of the script. There are some tricky letters, such as ghein and khe; I personally have trouble with ghein myself. I think it shouldn't really matter though, if you practice it enough I'm sure you could pick up all of the letters, it's just a matter of getting used to a sound you aren't used to producing. Good luck! Edited by LittleKey on 25 March 2009 at 2:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5744 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch | Message 10 of 37 25 March 2009 at 2:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you everyone for your contributions. Thank you LittleKey for your input and defense. I don't want to cause
problems but I do thank you for the support. I was listening to a disc I have recently received that has recordings of the Persian sounds. I have listened to the ghein and it is somewhat similar to an R sound I sometimes make. My Iranian friends are really helpful when I ask them to teach me some phrases. They even practice with me. One gave me a book so I could learn to read it!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LittleKey Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5950 days ago 146 posts - 153 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Japanese | Message 11 of 37 25 March 2009 at 2:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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You're welcome. And you didn't cause any problems, you were just asking an honest question. So don't worry, it's all khoob (good) =).
I COULD be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure ghein is pretty similar to the French "r", so that could explain why you know it already. Oh, and be careful when you ask your friends for help! I once asked my friends how to say something (I don't remember what, but it was generic, like "how are you today?" or something similar). They told me it was man seta tokhm daram, which in reality means "I have three testicles." hahaha. So tread with care =P! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5744 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch | Message 12 of 37 25 March 2009 at 3:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hahah. Thank you so much.
I think that I have an idea of what the ghein is now. It is probably going to be pretty easy. When I was learning English, one of my friends did exactly the same thing. Except, it was something like, "Can you shove feces in my face?" Please feel free to experiment with other words in the place of feces if you know what I am getting at. =) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LittleKey Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5950 days ago 146 posts - 153 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Japanese | Message 13 of 37 25 March 2009 at 4:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hahaha yeah, I see what you're getting at. That's why it's a good idea to check what they tell You through a translator or something to make sure they aren't messing with you =P. I hope you didn't say that phrase too often before you found out what it meant hahaha. And I'm curious, is there a large Persian population where you are?
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| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6567 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 14 of 37 25 March 2009 at 5:17am | IP Logged | |||||
You hear Persian more commonly because you live in Socal where the highest concentration of Iranians outside Iran is. I think the area from Culver city towards downtown Santa Monica is something like 40% Persian. But that's a special circumstance, and there is no question Arabic is more widely spoken even in the US. However, this is irrelevant since interest in a language is completely subjective and Persian is far from a minor or unimportant language. To the original point, Persian phonology is significantly different from Arabic. There is a somehow richer vowel inventory, and a noticeably poorer consonant inventory. Modern Persian vocabulary has a very large number of Arabic loanwords, and as you know is written in the Arabic script. The Arabic spelling is preserved in all words and word derivatives that come from Arabic. The pharyngeal series is different in that Haa' does not exist and is merged with heh. Ayn is not pharyngealized and is instead realized as a glottal stop or an aleph, which means that yes not only does Farsi have a hamza, it actually realizes ayn as a hamza in many cases. Qaf merges with ghayn, and ghayn is indistinguishable (at least to me) from Arabic. The emphatic series affects vowel openness but does not include any of the other features of emphatics seen in Arabic. Daad is merged with Zaa' and both are realized somehow differently from either sounds in Arabic. In short, Persian sounds significantly different from Arabic. Persian is high pitched, nasal, and drawling. In some ways it is reminiscent of a mix of Russian and French. Arabic is guttural, uneven, and halting, and even though it doesn't sound anything like Hollywood movies and episodes of 24 would have you believe, it probably is a system shock to most IE language speakers. In short even though to my Semitic ear I could not for the life of me imagine anything more annoying than Persian, I would think for a German speaker it would sound very beautiful and regal and I think you should go for it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LittleKey Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5950 days ago 146 posts - 153 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Japanese | Message 15 of 37 25 March 2009 at 7:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh I know Arabic is a lot more prevalent than Farsi. My point was just that Farsi is FAR from a language no one speaks. I believe it is the 22nd most spoken language in the world. Which, although that's pretty far behind English, Arabic, Spanish, etc., is still very high considering the thousands of languages in the world. And to me Farsi sounds very cool. To each their own though.
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| sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5744 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch | Message 16 of 37 25 March 2009 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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By the way, does anyone know any good Farsi books that not only really help with grammar but also with pronunciation. It does not matter whether or not it is in German or English.
I am really getting serious about Farsi. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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