Dear arabic speakers, please ignore the topic of the two videos and do not discuss it because it's irrelevant. My question is simple, is she speaking 100% fusha (for it's a formal speech and for she's reading out loud what was previously written down) or is she speaking in her saudi dialect or a mix of fusha and dialect?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXTgM4wBZiw
Second video: Here she is not reading but naturally speaking in an interview, is she speaking fusha (for it's being broadcast on a formal national TV channel?) or is she speaking her natural saudi dialect or a mixture? And in case she's speaking a mixture of both, why is that? Would it be because arabs in general don't speak fusha and when they "have to", they can't due to the lack of use or because they do it without even realising?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJIOxnr_YiE
I am a beginner in arabic so I still can't tell much but I heard in her speech some words that are used in fusha and (at least) not in Moroccan dialect (darija) as I have lived some months there. I know she's from Saudi Arabia and probably the dialect differs a lot but I would like to make sure.
Thanks in advance!
Alright, if you're here on italki is because you are somehow related to language learning and that cliche phrase that leads to empathy "I know how hard it is to learn a language" can actually make sense. But let's try to see through a different perspective, through the perspective from a non-language learner, someone who has no connection to the world of languages and here it is what my story.
As you can see on my profile I am a teacher here on italki. And sometimes when I am teaching, I have someone from my family at home, more exactly, in the same room where I am teaching my lessons. My parents and brother have minus zero interest for languages, my dad has never met a foreigner in his life (being from a very homogeneous region in Brazil) and would die without ever hearing a foreign accent in portuguese if it weren't for me.
So as you can guess, many times my family, relatives or even friends when they are around me waiting for me to finish a lesson so we can do something, they end up hearing the sessions with my students and I have noticed different reactions over the years. Sometimes they leave the room a bit irritated or sometimes they passively and silently pay attention to me talking with them.
Many times they make comments once I finish a lesson 'That person talks weird" 'speaks very well" "speaks very bad" and many others (through their perspective) and what I have concluded is that when my students or language partners (while speaking portuguese) use bad grammar, poor limited vocabulary but with confidence and at a normal pace, they (normal native speakers with zero interest or experience with languages) judge them to be good and those students who speak grammatically well, rich vocabulary, but slowly and lack of confidence, then my family and friends judge to need more practice :) and sometimes they even leave the room because for a normal native speaker, hearing someone struggle so much or speaking very slowly without confidence kinda irritates them and after awhile that leads them to zero patience. They even ask me how I can be so patient and add that they couldn't ever do this job. But one thing I also noticed from them is that a good pronunciation (not necessarily a perfect one) also matters because when the learners have very heavy pronunciation and accents, I also notice a bit of impatience and irritation, even when confidence and good pace were present in the speech.
Of course I am giving two extreme examples here. The learner who speaks bad grammar and has poor vocabulary but speaks with confidence at a good pace and the opposite one, who can speak with good grammar and vocabulary but slowly and without confidence. The "ideal" should be good grammar, vocabulary, pace and confidence.
So, would you agree that confidence and good pace while speaking leads to a better relationship and connection with normal native speakers of the target language? Did you ever feel "rejected" or "avoided" for not having those characteristics? The ones around you who have zero connection with language learning, have they ever made a comment about foreigners speaking their language?
Hello everyone, I started learning arabic and I'm still in the process of reading and writing but I find it a bit frustrating when I see a word and I can't picture the exact letters because when they are together, they are connected. I would like to know if there's any website or app where it would be possible to break the word into separate letters, for example:
ص ب ا ح - ا ل خ ي ر // صباح الخير
م س ا ء - ا ل خ ي ر // مساء الخير
Thanks in advance!
This is something interesting in my opinion. I see that different people (depending on the culture as well) understand these terms differently.
Being born in Brazil and growing up with Portuguese only, all three work the same in my case and also for millions of Brazilians. But there are special cases which can lead to some thinking!
Once I came across an interesting profile of a guy who wrote something like this
"Hi, I am a turk born and raised in Germany and I am here to learn my native language Turkish" and he put his turkish level as B1 and German as native (green colour) and my brain bugged for a moment, I had to read again.
I, of course, messaged him so intrigued by what I had read and then he replied saying that his parents spoke in turkish when he was a kid but he eventually stopped as soon as he started kindergarten and growing up in the german society and he never cared to learn the language although he understands the idea of a topic when he hears turkish (because he might hear it a lot through his family and relatives). but still he calls turkish his mother tongue and german as his second language, even though he might speak german as any other born-german. So, what is his real native language? To me, German no doubt, if that is the language that he thinks and expresses himself naturally without any struggle to communicate and live in his society
That is also the case of Nelly Furtado (famous canadian singer), her parents are from Portugal, she was born in Canada and she grew up speaking portuguese with her family but of course, as soon as she started her childhood, going to school, having contact with the real world, english took over. But her first 5 years of life, only portuguese was familiar to her. Nelly can speak portuguese but she struggles a lot and whenever she is speaking, you can feel stress, difficulties and a lot of concentration from her, not to mention that she makes mistakes that native speakers would never make, such as getting genders confused. When she is being interviewed in Portugal or in Brazil (and where the hosts speak portuguese to her), she always changes to english because she then can express herself more naturally, you can feel that she has no patience in speaking portuguese. In her case, what would you consider her mother tongue or native language?
Do you see a difference in these three terms?
I am now in Turkey and it is the first country I visit where the 5 languages that I can speak somehow are simply not useful at all. Even the young ones I have met with could not hold a very basic conversation in another foreign language. I am quite sure that there are many Turks who can speak other languages but I would say that they're not that easy to be found in the everyday life. I am now learning Turkish but because I decided to come to Turkey last minute, it was not possible for me to prepare myself in advance. And I am struggling a lot but I am very happy that Turkish people are so helpful, warm and welcoming that even with the language barrier, they will try their best to help you. They are patient enough to wait for me to type things on google translate and they write numbers for me when I ask for prices and etc, always with a smile and that makes me more relaxed and motivated to learn their language. Other countries where I've been to, if there's a language barrier, they simply get stressed and avoid you and don't even look at your direction.
What about you? Have you ever been to a country that none of the languages you speak were helpful? How do you deal with such situation?
The human being can be horrible and nasty sometimes. Many times people find it hard to acknowledge other people's success and that wouldn't be different in the language learning world.
The other day a friend of mine on FB shared an image that said "Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery". It sounds right and beautiful but doesn't apply in reality.
As a vivid language enthusiast and being involved in many language learning social activities I have noticed a sort of discrimination, judgement, prejudice, well you name it, when it comes to accents.
When you are a beginner or an intermediate speaker you are praised, encouraged and spoiled by everybody. "Congratulations, your X language is improving, keep up the good work!"... "Oh, you speak very well. I am impressed" that compliment made by a native speaker when you're still learning the language but hasn't achieved fluency yet.
But it changes as soon as you master the language (sometimes the evil envious ones don't even wait for that stage to happen so they can spread their poison). Here on italki forums, youtube videos of famous polyglot or anyone speaking foreign languages and practically everywhere you will hear that comment "Yeah, so-and-so speaks really well but still has an accent", this "but" shows how a person is reluctant to admit that one person can really speak well and is trying to find a tiny little thing to criticize and minimize the merit of the speaker.
And it doesn't have to be only about the accent, but about the other skills in the language as well, some people's hobbies are to find minor errors in someone's speech so they go and point out how imperfect the person is.
Have you ever experienced, felt or noticed this? Are you the judge or the judged?
And I'm not talking about those with a strong foreign accent that causes problem in understanding the speaker. Therefore there is no need to use that argument here.
