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Macedonian Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| mistael Groupie United States Joined 6604 days ago 48 posts - 51 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Russian | Message 1 of 29 06 June 2006 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
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I was wondering if anyone was studying Macedonian here? I have the chance
to live in Macedonia. My wife can obtain citizenship there because her parents were born there. Me and her would have to learn Macedonian first because it is required and the paperwork is in this language. How difficult is this language compared to Russian? Are there similarities since they share the cyrilic alphabet? Edited by mistael on 07 June 2006 at 2:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 6885 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 2 of 29 06 June 2006 at 3:06pm | IP Logged |
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There's a good article on the language here.
As far as its difficulty, it's a Slavic language and would take longer to learn than say a Romance language simply because of how it doesn't have that strong of a link to English. It's an easter south slavic language and would be closest to Bulgarian and only somewhat close to Russian. I'm not sure how much relation there is exactly, but it's not as linked to Russian as it is to the other southern Slavic languages. Considering Russian is more common for people to learn it might be harder to find study materials and that could make it harder to learn. Perhaps some here know of some sites and recourses to help with learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Daniel Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6593 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Dutch, Italian | Message 3 of 29 06 June 2006 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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There is a Macedonian grammar available at www.seelrc.org There is a
drop-down bar at the left of the screen, just click "Reference Grammars" and then navigate to the Macedonian one. They don't have exercises for the grammar up yet, but probably will soon. If you click on the "Webliography" button on the site it also has a list of other websites related to learning Macedonian. Good luck! Edited by Daniel on 06 June 2006 at 3:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 4 of 29 06 June 2006 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
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I heard once that Bulgarian was the easiest of the Slavic languages (grammatically), and that Macedonian was very closely related to Bulgarian. They are the only Slavonic languages that use articles, and they do not use noun cases.
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| brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 5 of 29 06 June 2006 at 7:27pm | IP Logged |
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But I have no experience studying Macedonian although it sounds very interesting.
-brumblebee I think that it is pretty different from Russian, but I'm not sure. Edited by brumblebee on 06 June 2006 at 7:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 6 of 29 06 June 2006 at 7:36pm | IP Logged |
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As for a comparason to Russian look at this:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/russian/faq /slavic-languages.html I guess that it would be harder to learn after Russian. Edited by brumblebee on 06 June 2006 at 7:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 29 06 June 2006 at 8:16pm | IP Logged |
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Generally, Russian and Macedonian have similarities because they descend from a proto-Slavonic tongue. The Cyrillic alphabet in Macedonian is actually more similar to the Cyrillic alphabet used in Serbia than the one used in Russia.
Macedonian differs from Russian in a couple of important ways. It has simplified many of its nominal and adjectival declensions. In some ways, it may remind you of the difference between English and German. English has only two cases (nominative and non-nominative. e.g "who" vs. "whom" or "he" vs. "him") while German has four: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Macedonian has fewer cases than most of the other Slavonic languages including Russian. However, Macedonian has a feature involving the difference between definite and indefinite nouns. Bulgarian is the only other Slavonic language that distinguishes definite from indefinite nouns. In both cases, Bulgarian and Macedonian use suffixes to indicate "definiteness". However, the approach in Macedonian is unique in that it's a little more elaborate than in Bulgarian. Russian definitely doesn't mark a noun's "definitness" with a suffix. I think that the greatest difficulty in teaching yourself Macedonian is the lack of much good material. Russian has plenty of resources and you can usually find something that'll be helpful. I know of a solid Macedonian course created by Prof. Christina Kramer, but that's it. I'm sure that there are textbooks in Macedonia but I'm not sure if many are designed for foreigners who wish to learn the language given it's relatively low profile within the Slavonic family. I'm not sure if "Colloquial" or "Teach Yourself" series offer anything in Macedonian just to get your feet wet. Good luck Chung Edited by Chung on 06 June 2006 at 8:21pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| brumblebee Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6556 days ago 206 posts - 212 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 8 of 29 06 June 2006 at 9:08pm | IP Logged |
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There aren't any products from Colloquials or T.Y. for Macedonian (I was really bored so I checked)
there are some products on this page: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu but I don't think that all of them are available. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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