learning urdu

KIPAX

KIPAX

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KIPAX Lancashire UK
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learning urdu is something I ahve always wanted to do... 35+ yrs ago I thought it was a brilliant idea... then life ....now back to thinking its a decent idea.. not brilliant like before..

slight problem.. although english born and english is my only language.. I am slightly illiterate.... poor schooling.. left (legally) at age 14 and only one of half a dozen out of a class of 44 who could read proper on leaving day.. plus had to wear a patch over one eye so i couldnt write.. i still cant do joined up writing and mostly write in uppercase.. plus side.. I do know markup, script and many programming languages from C to perl that require perfect syntax.. so not fick! :)

I don't want to end up never having learnt it to some degree... so has anyone else tried.. is there a good resource that doesnt require a degree in rocket science to follow it?
 
Ricardodaforce said:
No idea I'm afraid. But I am impressed that you want to learn a foreign language. Good luck with it.
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Precisely this.
Perhaps trying to learn a language not based on our alphabet (such as Urdu) might work in your favour.
Good luck! :)
 
I am learning a foreign language and I attend classes given by the council adult learning service. Not all councils do this and not all languages are covered, but might be worth investigating.
 
Strewth Kipax, you're in Accy aren't you? There are plenty of Urdu speakers all round there. Wander down to the local mosque/school/market. After recent events our muslim friends seem to be keen to integrate better so just ask for a contact. Most speak English better than you'll ever speak Urdu so finding a teacher shouldn't be a problem.
 
offer photography lessons in exchange
 
mickledore said:
Strewth Kipax, you're in Accy aren't you? There are plenty of Urdu speakers all round there. Wander down to the local mosque/school/market. After recent events our muslim friends seem to be keen to integrate better so just ask for a contact. Most speak English better than you'll ever speak Urdu so finding a teacher shouldn't be a problem.
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Your right in a way and I do have a heck of a lot of muslim friends/contacts (emphasis on contacts I think) ..My intention was to make a start and then approach to see if I was on the right track.. Looked into it a bit and there are some bad tutorials about that just get it wrong in places... just wondered if anyone had a proven source :)
 
KIPAX said:
Your right in a way and I do have a heck of a lot of muslim friends/contacts (emphasis on contacts I think) ..My intention was to make a start and then approach to see if I was on the right track..
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make sure you pick an urdu speaker - which is basically most but not all pakistanis (in particular don't ask a kashmiri because they see being forced to speak urdu as a cultural oppression by the indian govt - rather like some welsh do about english) - standard urdu is also interchangable with standard hindi , which is the official language of india , spoken by most , but not all indians.

It gets complicated howevrer because there are loads of regional variations which incorporate words from neighbouring countries - so for example the urdu spokenin the far north of pakistan also includes a lot of words from pashto.

Also be aware that imigrants from bangladesh speak bengali which is different - some may speak urdu/hindi as well but not all do and some will be very offended if confused with a pakistani or indian.

all that aside the technical problems you are likely to face are a) pronouciation is very fluid , like welsh only more so , so if you are used to hard anglo saxon constanant sounds you may struggle to make yourself understood and b) if you plan to learn to write it also its a different alphabet which is a bugger ( I tried to learn russian once and had the same problem)

and on how to learn - I'd be inclined to go with one of the mainstream teach yourself... providers like babbel or rossetta stone instead of a lot of the free stuff which as you say may be inaccurate http://www.rosettastone.com/lp/sbs/sitewide/

Before anyone says it appart from the rossetta stone link this info didnt come via google - I went to sixth form college in high wycombe and had/have lots of muslim friends , most of whom were pakistani urdu speakers. I tried to learnt to speak it but i'm not a natural linguist and got to about 6 words, most of which were rude
 
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cheers pete... yes had seen a lot of that in my searches... at the moment I ahvent even considered trying to write it.. probaboy a no no for me.. when i looked a year or so ago the rossetta stone ones got bad reviews to the point of being laughed at so it put me off..

going to have a word wiht a few poeple over the weekend see if they would be prepared to help in some small way.. just to get me started...I have a few bits of info on the laguage so I know some little oddities.. thanks for the input :)
 
thing is that both rossetta stone and babbel will teach standard urdu - but as i mentioned theres a lot of regional variation so 'standard urdu' will get laughed off as inaccurate by someone who speaks a language thats for example urdu mixed with pashto, some tadjik and a sprinkling of uzbek (that specific example isnt likely to be a problem unless you are taking language lesson from al queda ;) )

the other thing is i bet your local FE colleges offer urdu as an option
 
big soft moose said:
thing is that both rossetta stone and babbel will teach standard urdu
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I think that could apply to any language course for any language. Take Spanish, spoken by vast numbers across very distant and diverse parts of the world. The "standard" Spanish tought in schools will have significant variations in vocab and verb conjugation depending where you are. I am sure it's the same for other languages too.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I think that could apply to any language course for any language. Take Spanish, spoken by vast numbers across very distant and diverse parts of the world. The "standard" Spanish tought in schools will have significant variations in vocab and verb conjugation depending where you are. I am sure it's the same for other languages too.
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undoubtedly - i only mentioned it to explain the various bad reviews. If you've got a native speaker saying "this course is flat out wrong about x, y, z" its probably because they don't speak 'standard'
 
I may digress slightly but when I started to learn Spanish at an adult education course (don't Google that at work - the internet police ring quickly!) - had a choice of 2 teachers, a Basque Spaniard or a reasonably fluent English person. Went with the former, never looked back - since then have become great friends. So as mentioned above, probably better to go with a native speaker...
 
I've heard it said that the best way to learn a language is from a woman in bed... I strongly suggest you don't go that route or you could wind up with a large and angry pakistani father demanding you satisfy his families honour ;) :LOL:
 
How's your welsh accent?

As Pete said :

big soft moose said:
a) pronouciation is very fluid , like welsh only more so , so if you are used to hard anglo saxon constanant sounds you may struggle to make yourself understood
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My friend's a native Urdu speaker who has lived and worked in both London and South Wales.
As somebody who has English as his second language, he finds the Welsh accent far easier to understand than the English one - even though the Welsh tend to talk a lot faster (even when speaking English)

Apparently he finds that the Welsh accent has a similar rhythm and pattern to Urdu which makes it far easier for him.
Incidentally, he also does a far better rendition of Llanfair PG than me (which is quite embarrassing since I'm Welsh, but I don't really have that strong an accent) :LOL:
 
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I think Urdu and Hindi are basically the same language, only Urdu is written in Arabic script and Hindi in Sanskrit. But I could be wrong.
 
If my experience of the West Midlands in the 70s / 80s is anything to go by, learning a bit of Urdu, Hindi or Bengali will gain you a lot of respect and get you some great deals. ;)

Good luck with it.
 
ghoti said:
I think Urdu and Hindi are basically the same language, only Urdu is written in Arabic script and Hindi in Sanskrit. But I could be wrong.
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In their standard forms you are right , course dialects are a different matter (that goes back to days of empire before the partion of india)
 
I think that any Urdu speaker, regardless of dialect, would be most pleased that you've made tge effort to speak / write it at all.
 
KIPAX said:
i still cant do joined up writing and mostly write in uppercase.
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I don't join up writing. It's much neater if I don't.

I had an argument with my daughter's teacher over this as she was struggling to write legibly so I told her not to bother joining it up or putting loops on things. Her teacher argued that she wouldn't achieve something to do with Key Stages (some sort of assessment nonsense I assume) but I said I don't care and I would rather that she wrote legibly than try to follow some preconceived idea about how we should write. Anyway, open a book and what do you see? Words with separate letters!

As for languages, I was hopeless at school but started teaching myself French about twelve years ago. My intention was to start Spanish when I was fluent in French... Well, I haven't started Spanish yet!


Steve.
 
if she can't write legibly i suggest she studies medicine ;)
 
Steve Smith said:
I don't join up writing. It's much neater if I don't.
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I stopped when I was 13, I realised my writing was a lot more legible if I didn't write joined up and at secondary school none of the teachers seemed to care once I explained my reasoning.

I don't remember this happening, but my mother tells the story (recounted to her at a parents evening by my teacher) that at primary school my teacher showed me the exercise book of a girl in my class who wrote longhand beautifully and compared it to mine (which was very far from beautiful) and asked why I didn't write like that. Apparently I pointed out a spelling mistake in the beautiful handwriting :D
 
My wife's native language is Farsi which is similar to Urdu (Urdu was derived from Farsi). If you are going to learn something like Urdu, then you have to be constantly around people speaking the language, because it is not like French (which I speak) or German. For a start, the way you speak and pronounce syllables is totally different, and someone may have to instruct you how to make these sounds. The writing is of course totally different, being based on caligraphy, and written from right to left - the opposite of us.
 
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