Practicing Hebrew #1

שלום! מה שלומכם היום? אני רוצה לדבר בעברית. אני לומד עברית ברכבת בבוקר ובערב. אני רוצה לקנות מחשב חדש, כי המחשב שלי נשבר. החבר שלי ואני   הולכים לקונצרט בבולטימור הערב. ערב טוב! להתראות

Shalom! Ma shlomchem ha'yom? Ani rotseh ledaber b'ivrit. Ani lomed ivrit ba'rakevet ba'boker v'ba'erev. Ani rotseh li'knot machshev chadash, ki ha'machshev sheli nishbar. Ha'chaver sheli v'ani holchim l'kontsert b'Baltimore ha'erev. Erev tov! L'hitraot!

Hi! How are all of you today? I want to speak in Hebrew  I study Hebrew on the train in the morning and in the evening. I want to buy a new computer, because my computer is broken. My boyfriend and I are going to a concert in Baltimore this evening. Good evening! See ya!

Was? Mein deutsch ist nicht ganz PERFEKT?!

I recently stumbled upon a site called Forvo, whose sub-headline claims "All the words in the world. Pronounced."

I can't even begin to describe how excited I was to find it, and I don't even remember how that happened. I was so excited that I made an account right away and started exploring the site and recording pronunciations for as many words as I could in French, German, Esperanto and English.

What I failed to realize in my haste is that the site is intended for native pronunciations only... Or maybe I just ignored the request, believing that anyone can pass as a native if they pronounce things properly.

Well, I was wrong. Not long after I signed up, I received a message from one of the site's editors asking me to refrain from making recordings in German, as it is not my native language, no matter how confident I might feel about my pronunciation. The editor also mentioned that s/he could detect a "slight" accent in my recordings, and for that reason needed to delete all the words I'd pronounced in German.

I don't have much of an ego, but that was certainly a blow! I speak German with a slight accent? I had no idea! At first I was all offended and outraged; but then I realized how ridiculous it was for me to be upset. The site explicitly requests that only native speakers pronounce words in their language for a reason, and it makes sense. Besides, who am I to say that I have no accent in German? I have to accept the word of the editor, a native speaker.

My one consolation in this case is that all the words I pronounced in French are still there for now. Either they were pronounced "perfectly", or a French-speaking editor has not yet had reason to review them and deem them unworthy. Also, because there are almost no native speakers of Esperanto, anyone can post pronunciations in that language, pending peer review (i.e. users across the site can vote on any given word pronunciation as "Good" or "Bad"). Obviously, the English words I recorded can stay. Yippee!

I guess it's a good thing the German-speaking editor got to me before I started recording words in even more languages! I mean, my pronunciation is pretty good IMOSHO, but on this site at least, I'll have to defer to the natives.

You can hear my horrible pronunciations at http://www.forvo.com/user/lingvamanto

Thoughts about accents

This video, "21 Accents" by Amy Walker, is one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube. I have seen it several times, and am always amazed (and impressed) by the ease with which she glides from one accent into another, not only changing her pronunciation and enunciation but also her facial expressions and mannerisms.

I have always found it enjoyable, and relatively easy, to learn other languages. Regional accents on the other hand have never been my forte, and I'm really bad at doing almost all of them.

When it comes to speaking a "standard" variety of a language, I've been pretty good so far. Most people with whom I have a chance to speak French assume that I'm from France until I do/say something to gives me away as American. I think I have a pretty generic sounding German, but I doubt anyone will think I come from Germany...nevertheless, I might just pass for a few minutes as a native speaker. But ask me to speak French with a Canadian accent or German with a Swiss accent, for example, and I will fail miserably - so I'm always impressed by people who can pull off different accents. I guess we are always impressed by that which we cannot do ourselves, otherwise it would just be ordinary.

Even so, after living among a people for awhile, I do start subconsciously incorporating the local speech patterns and pronunciations whether I want to or not - even to the point of not remembering how a word is "supposed" to be pronounced, i.e. how I pronounced it before my speech changed. This is neither good nor bad in itself, but usually any deviation from "standard" speech brings with it any prejudices that might go along with the given dialect. After living in Baltimore for all these years, there are definitely some words that stand out when I return home to Northern New Jersey! Ah well, such is life.

The Bahá'í Faith and Esperanto

Today in church we had a service titled Bahá'í and Other Liberal Faith Stories. We had a guest speaker from the Baltimore Bahá'í Community, and in her sharing she stated that Bahá'ís have as one of their ideals the use of an international auxiliary language (!).

If I had known that in the past, I had forgotten. So I looked into it and learned that Bahá'ís have a history with Esperanto! Although, apparently, no Bahá'í has ever officially suggested that they promote Esperanto itself as the world language for this age, nevertheless many have embraced the language as a suitable one.

Back in the day, when I was researching different religions in an effort to find a new spiritual home, I boiled down my options to two things - the Bahá'í Faith, and Unitarian Universalism. Obviously, I chose the latter for reasons I won't get into here (and I'm still going strong as the UUXMNR all these years later!), but this little snippet of information in today's service fascinated me! I'm looking forward to working together with Bahá'ís in the future...maybe I can help with the planning for next year's celebrations, commemorating the centennial anniversary of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's visit to my congregation while touring the United States in 1912. Maybe I can find a local Bahá'í Esperantist to chat with...who knows?!

Check out the Wikipedia article on Bahá'í Faith and Esperanto


Je la hodiaŭa diservo, titolita Bahaismo kaj Aliaj Liberalaj Fido-rakontoj, estis gasta lektoro de la Baltimora Bahaa Komunumo. Dum ŝia parolo deklaris ŝi ke Bahaanoj jesas, kiel principo, la usadon de ia internacia help-lingvo (!).

Se mi iufoje sciis tion, mi tuj forgesis – do mi esploris la aferon kaj lernis ke Bahaanoj havas historion kun Esperanto! Kvankam neniu Bahaano laŭraporte proponis oficiale ke oni antaŭenpuŝu Esperanton mem kiel monda lingvo de tiu ĉi epoko, multaj tamen estas alprenintaj tiun lingvon kiel taŭga.

Pasintepoke, kiam mi estis esploranta diversajn religiojn, klopodante malkovri novan spiritan hejmon, tiam mi limigis miajn opciojn al du alternativoj – la Bahaismo kaj la Unitaria Universalismo. Evidente mi elektis la lastan (la kialon mi ne nune klarigas ĉi tie), kaj mi daŭre forte estas la UUXMNR post tiom da jaroj; sed tiu eta informaĵero donata je la diservo vere fascinis min! Mi antaŭĝojas pri laboradi kune kun Bahaanoj estonte…eble mi povos helpi kun la planado de la venontjara festado por soleni la jarcentan datrevenon de la vizito de ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ĉe mia preĝejo dum li turneis Usonon en la jaro 1912. Eble mi povas trovi lokan bahaan esperantiston kun kiu babili…kiu ja scias?!

Legu pli pri Esperanto en la Bahaa Komunumo