It takes two to tango - About false and real friends - Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish (World Cup Challenge Day 2)




Photo by Baher Khairy on Unsplash (Graffiti in Cairo)

So, yesterday (16.06.2018) was the second day of the World Cup 2018. The matches were Egypt vs. Uruguay (0:1), Morocco vs. Iran (0:1) and Portugal vs. Spain (2:3).

Egypt (Arabic) vs. Uruguay (Spanish) 

Of all the countries participating in the World Cup I know the least about Uruguay. The only things that come to my mind are Montevideo, Luis Suarez and José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica. Mujica has a video column on DW world: Conciencia Sur. He speaks slowly and there are Spanish subtitles, so it's perfect for learners.

I know a little bit more about Egypt but of course, the usual pictures come first to my mind: pyramides, the sphinx, hieroglyphes and the pharaohs. Just clichés but not much about life in modern Egypt (apart from political developments in recent years of course). 

I tried to find something to connect Egypt and Uruguay and stumbled upon tango. Tango originated not only in Argentina but also in Uruguay and the most famous tango, La Cumparsita, was written 1916 by Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodríguez. Listen to the original version of la Cumparsita. Tango and Egyptian belly dance fused to tango oriental: here is a video of Russian dancers performing tango oriental. Btw, two years before Rodríguez composed La Cumparsita, Alexander Maloof published his Egyptian Glide an "oriental tango".

For practising Arabic I'm just translating an easy text from a textbook:

  مصر جميلة جدا. القاهرة مدينة كبيرة، وهي قديمة جدا. المتحف المصري في ميدان التحرير قريب من فندق النيل. هناك مطعم ممتاز في فندق النيل في ميدان التحرير. وطبعا هناك الأهرام الجيزة 

Egypt is very beautiful. Cairo is a big city and is very old. The Egyptian museum is located on the Tahrir Square close to the Nile Hotel. There is an excellent restaurant in the Nile Hotel at the Tahrir Square. And of course, there are the pyramids of Gizeh.

Morocco (Arabic) vs. Iran (Persian)

People often think that Arabic and Persian are related because they use the same script but in fact they are from different language families. Persian does have a big number of Arabic loan words though. This video explains the differences and similarities between those languages quite well:
Langfocus: How Similar are Persian and Arabic?

I love the sound of the Persian language and studied it for a while but then stopped when I started with Spanish. So, it's over a year now that I have practised Persian. I better start easy with some basic verbs.

زدن to hit, to kick
با سر ضربه زدن to head
با پا ضربه زدن to kick
دست زدن to applaud

کردن to do
تکل کردن to attack
شوت کردن to shoot
توپ را مهار کردن to hold on to the ball

Bonus word:
گلبهخودی own goal

Sadly, women in Iran are banned to enter soccer stadiums. Learn more about this situation from this article and interview: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-02-15/cunning-plan-break-ban-women-iranian-soccer-matches. Women often try to dress like men, put on fake beards and enter nevertheless if they aren't detected. At least in Russia, Iranian women can cheer for their team in the stadiums.

Portugal (Portuguese) vs. Spain (Spanish)

This pic is taken from this website where you can find more info on Spanish and Portuguese false friends: http://ibericalanguages.com/spanish-and-portuguese-false-friends/

Spanish and Portuguese have many similarities but it's nevertheless dangerous to just translate word for word. This video explains the differences and similarities between those languages:
Langfocus: How Similar are Spanish and Portuguese?

For practising I wrote a couple of easy sentences to compare Spanish and Portuguese:

The children play cops and robbers.
As crianças brincam aos polícias e ladrões.
Los niños juegan a policías y ladrones.

The cook seasons the sauce with parsley.
O cozinheiro tempera o molho com salsa.
El cocinero sazona la salsa con perejil.

The men work for daily wages.
Os homens trabalham os dias.
Los hombres trabajan a jornal.

Oh, well, these two languages do differ a lot. I do write several short texts in Spanish daily, since it is still my focus language. I should take up writing in Portuguese again as well.



Kommentare

Kommentar veröffentlichen

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Mixing Chinese and Italian (Zhenjie Paifang vs Archi di castità)

Bild
One of my preferred methods of learning multiple languages at the same time, is reading something in one language and then writing about it in another language. So, this month, I take part in the Chinese reading challenge by Hacking Chinese and decided to read an anthology by Yu Qiuyu  ( 余秋雨读本 ), one of the most famous and influential contemporary writers in China. I want to use what I read as an inspiration for writing texts in other languages. So, yesterday I wrote a short text in Italian about a topic inspired by this book. Let me first explain the topic a bit. The first essay in the anthology is about paifang , traditional Chinese arches. When I stumbled upon the word zhenjie paifang (贞节牌坊), which means chastity arch , I remembered that I've been to a village called Tangyue (堂樾) in Anhui Province 14 years ago. The village is famous for their seven memorial archways built by the Bao family during the course of several centuries. The first archway can be traced back to...
Mehr anzeigen

What's in a face? About Stereotypes

Bild
This week I finally started my new job as a lecturer in a masters studies program called "Germanistik und Interkulturalität/Multilingualität " ("German Studies and Interculturalism/Multilingualism"). As you may figure, this seems to be just the right thing for me and I'm excited to go back to teaching again. Interestingly, a new colleague asked me, if I was from New Zealand. It seemed that I looked a bit Maori to her. Not long ago, I talked to another italki user and told him, that I was mixed-race to which he replied that he always thought of me being American Indian. This prompted me to conduct a little experiment on stereotypes and I posted this discussion on italki:  https://www.italki.com/discussion/165794 . If you're not an italki user, you can't read the whole discussion, so I'm going to summarize it. My initial post was:  I had some discussions with other users that it seems to be difficult to guess my ethnicity and my age from...
Mehr anzeigen

Talk to my hand! Learning sign language with one hand

Bild
The first time I learnt something about sign language was when I visited a dormitory for deaf youngsters who pursued a vocational training in Munich. The director of the dorm explained that German Sign Language (GSL, Deutsche Gebärdensprache) was a language completely independent of spoken German. I learnt that GSL had its own complex grammar and even dialects. After the tour through the dorm, the visitors could have drinks in the dorms café and suddenly I felt mute. How was I supposed to communicate that I wanted a coke? I didn't know any sign language! It was an interesting experience and since that time I was fascinated by sign language and by Deaf culture . Yes, Deaf people have their own culture. A world that is unfamiliar to hearing people. But I love it that the Deaf community embraces their own culture rather than seeing themselves as disabled. "Able-bodied" or "disabled" are just terms defined by society, but not necessarily how people feel themsel...
Mehr anzeigen