|
 |
Burmese thread | ||
Tags: Burmese | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Multilingual Lounge |  | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4454 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes  Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 9 of 22 16 February 2012 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
|
I live next door to Burma, so it's not distant for me.
If you'd like to check it out on the Internet, you could look at a news website called Democratic Voice of Burma (www.dvb.no). Besides the news stories on the main page, you can click "Burmese language" to see the same stories in Burmese, plus video, and (maybe most interesting) radio news broadcasts in half a dozen minority languages, which are totally different from Burmese, like Mon, Karen etc. Karaoke is popular in Burma, and there a lot of videos on Youtube with easy-to-follow texts good for language learning. I don't think Burmese should be the first Asian language for a Westerner, frankly you're unlikely to get much out of it. Although at the moment there's a flow of refugees from Burma into different parts of the States, communities are developing in places like upstate New York, Indiana etc. Finding native speakers this way would be one idea for getting real exposure to the language, depending on how motivated you are I suppose. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5517 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 10 of 22 16 February 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
|
Thanks for the resources.
I agree, I was just interested because another language learner said I might like the language. If I wanted to learn an Asian language I'd try Mandarin, Japanese, or Hindi, and I think Hindi might be the easiest, plus it's Indo-European. Anyway, sorry I can't chat in Burmese since that's what this thread is for. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4966 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 11 of 22 16 February 2012 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
|
Well, I think it's not wrong if the thread change into a post bout Burmese in general.
Of course Burmese has not close vocabulary to Japanese, but I wanted to say that the grammar structure is strangely similar. I hope the situation in Burma is really going to improve, when it come to democratization. As for resources, I know: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/ Very nice course, you have to install the fonts firsts, as they don't use unicode,but I think it's very good. Also the audio does not work well :( (you can listen to it, but it downloads the audio, and opens the player, instead of playing it from the website) http://el.osaka-gaidai.ac.jp/flc/bur/lesson02/01.html Available in Japanese Also, on soyouwanttolearnalanguage website, there are some books to download (legal, of course). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5517 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 12 of 22 17 February 2012 at 1:39am | IP Logged |
|
Thanks, clumsy.
That was the free course I was talking about it in an earlier post. Only 24 people listed Burmese as a language they speak or study on the forum, so I don't know if many people are going to chat in this thread. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4454 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 13 of 22 17 February 2012 at 3:26am | IP Logged |
|
Yes, the NIU page is good, although the fonts are a pain. Okell (the uber-guru for Burmese) also wrote "Burmese by Ear". Both the text in pdf and audio in mp3 are available for free on the SOAS website - here's the link:
http://www.soas.ac.uk/bbe/ The SOAS website has a lot of good info on the language, including a list of universities around the world where Burmese is taught. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5517 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 14 of 22 17 February 2012 at 11:57am | IP Logged |
|
I looked at Burmese by Ear, but unfortunately the audio files are zipped and I don't know how to unzip them.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4454 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 15 of 22 22 February 2012 at 3:19pm | IP Logged |
|
There are also some materials in French, like "Parlons Birman" in the l'Harmattan series. I don't know if this publisher's "Parlons..." books have been mentioned on this forum, but they have a wide range of obscure minority languages from different parts of the world - including for Southeast Asia Mon and Kuy. The books include both cultural background and language instruction. The Burmese one is by M-C Cardinaud, there are 2 volumes and it looks like fun, with a cartoon as well. I've heard it's used at INALCO. There are also dictionaries etc by Denise Bernot.
About Burmese and Japanese - well, maybe structurally there is some sort of similarity. But I have studied both and I see very few links - knowing Pali is much more useful for getting Burmese vocabulary, just as it is for Thai, etc. In fact, Pali has influenced written Burmese structurally, there are particles (only in the written language) that stand for the nominative, accusative and other cases. This is because Burmese was first written mainly to translate Pali, and there was a type of religious literature where both languages were read side by side. You might find some Burmese people who believe in the affinity between Japanese and their language, but it's really just wishful thinking. Maybe interesting to think about, though. Edited by viedums on 22 February 2012 at 3:22pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| simon43 Newbie Thailand Joined 5997 days ago 3 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Laotian, Burmese, Arabic (Gulf) | Message 16 of 22 02 June 2012 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
|
I've just started to learn Burmese. I've lived in Thailand since 2002 and can speak,
read and write good Thai. Now, as Myanmar/Burma is starting to open up, I find myself travelling on a weekly basis into the country to provide free English language lessons for the Burmese community. Knowledge of both written and spoken Burmese will definitely help me with my NGO work. Simon 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
