The World Cup Challenge


Today, the 14th of June 2018 marks the start of the Soccer World Cup in Russia. I'm looking forward to exciting matches, I love learning languages, I'm interested in other cultures and I enjoy taking part in challenges. So, why not combine all of that and take up a World Cup challenge? Starting from today I want to post every day a couple of sentences in the languages of the participating countries, some fun facts about them and of course links to music and resources in those languages.

I know it's a tad crazy but I won't write whole essays but keep the blog posts rather short. And a lot of countries share the same official languages so I can group them together. My knowledge in the following languages goes from tiny little bit (Serbian), basic (Arabic, Portuguese) over intermediate (French, Spanish) to advanced (English).

Spanish: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Panama, Peru, Uruguay.

Arabic: Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia

French: Belgium, France, Senegal, Switzerland

English: Australia, England, Nigeria

Portuguese: Brazil, Portugal

Serbo-Croatian: Croatia, Serbia

Yes, I'm aware that some of those countries also have other languages and I might have a look at languages like Wolof and Yoruba but of course I won't have time to really study them.

Other languages of World Cup teams, that I have studied already to some extent (from a little bit to advanced): Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Russian.

Languages that I haven't studied at all so far: Danish, Icelandic, Swedish

Hm, it's pretty obvious which region I have completely overlooked so far. So, I take this challenge as a chance to get a glimpse of those languages.

Ok, so the World Cup started with a bang! Russia vs. Saudia Arabia. 5:0! Let's start practising then!

Russian



I found this great picture here: Russian Step by Step (posted 14.06.2018)

В этом году Чемпионат мира по футболу проходит в России. Российская команда сыграла сегодня против Саудовской Аравии и одержала победу: 5:0! Судья показал две жёлтые карточки. Я была удивлена, что российский тренер свободно говорит на немецком языке. Я с нетерпением жду субботу. Немецкая команда будет играть против Мексики.

More Russian resources with vocabulary related to football/soccer and other sports

Russian Pod 101: World Cup
Memrise Russian soccer terms
Fun Russian: Sports in Russian

Arabic


Ok, the picture is from the last World Cup but the words haven't changed, I guess. I'm no expert in soccer and only know the basic rules but with this glossary in Arabic and English, I can get myself educated about soccer related terms: Arabic-English Soccer Glossary.

.هذا العام كأس العالم في روسيا
أتحب كرة القدم؟
اليوم ما في الفرق التي تلعب؟
أنا أشجع ألمانيا. وأنت؟

More Arabic resources with vocabulary related to football/soccer and other sports

Russian vs Arabic soccer songs


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