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Making a start on Armenian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5432 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes  Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 12 10 December 2009 at 8:21am | IP Logged |
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I have "Spoken East Armenian" by Gordon H. Fairbanks and Earl W. Stevick, which dates from 1958, reprinted in 1989 by Spoken Language Services. I cannot comment on its value, since I've not used it yet. Armenian is one of those languages that intrigues me--I spent a little bit of time on it decades ago when I lived in Iran and had an Armenian secretary--but I have not so far found a great enough motivation to push me forward. For me, it would probably take some great literature in Armenian, but I haven't identified any yet. Suggestions are welcome! In contrast, there is an ocean of wonderful Persian literature and the deeper I go into that the more I find. There's plenty in Arabic, from the Qu'ran to 1001 Nights to medieval poetry to modern Nobel-prize winning novels. I'm obviously literature-driven.
If you want to know about Armenian materials, you might start in Fresno, California. There's a large Armenian community there. I just googled "fresno armenian bookstore" and came up with lot of links. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sawasawaya Newbie United States Joined 5251 days ago 5 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 12 28 January 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged |
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TixhiiDon,
You haven't indicated if you're more interested in Eastern Armenian (Armenia) or Western Armenian (the diaspora), but if you are interested in the latter I'd suggest you try to get hold of "Practical Textbook of Western Armenian" by Haroutiun Kurkjian. It was originally published in 1971 for French-speaking learners, but was republished in 1980 with the English-language adaption by Virginia Pattie. The original French version apparently had nine hours of audio to go with it, but the English language version (luckily for me a local library has it) only has four hours of audio. I've never had the opportunity to evaluate the French version, but the English version recordings are all in Armenian except that the lesson headings and exercise numbers are called out in English. I haven't studied with it myself (yet) but I've looked it over and am quite intrigued by what I've seen. There are 72 lessons. The first 16 introduce the alphabet, about 6 letters at a time, and begin introducing words and phrases to get you going right away. Up through Lesson 56 they typically have a conversation that you work with, and supposedly cover a basic vocabulary of 1000-1100 words, then lessons 57-72 are a series of reading texts that add another 500-600 words. It's designed for self-learning and really targeted at the younger generation(s) of ethnic Armenians in the diaspora who didn't learn to speak the language at home, but are intrigued at learning more about their own language and culture. Best of luck with your studies! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5245 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 11 of 12 28 January 2010 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the information Sawasawaya, but I've actually switched to Georgian since this post! I'm rather embarrassed at my flightiness! I still hope to study Armenian one day, but for now I'm going to stick with her next-door neighbour. Edited by TixhiiDon on 28 January 2010 at 11:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 6925 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 12 of 12 29 January 2010 at 12:18am | IP Logged |
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I'm getting into this thread late, and you may already have abandoned your interest in Armenian for Georgian, but in response to your earlier query about Armenian literature in English or Russian, the following site has some literary and historical texts in both languages:
http://armenianhouse.org/ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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