#Gender in English Grammar in Bengali

[goldendusk-if]

Hello!

I’m here with half good and maybe bad news(?) So the last Character & Word count were in fact very inaccurate by a LOT. I didn’t realize I have a bunch of extra stuff and drafts of the story beforehand in it so twine included that…Um, so the updated and more accurate one will be included.

And I’ve decided to also do Female Mc’s and the story text will be different because of gender at scenes as well. So, Male Versions of the Ro’s will be made and depending on the Ro so will be the backstory/personality by a little bit. And to be quite honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to write crushes especially same-gender ones mostly because I don’t want to be cancelled and I personally have no experience so, it will be difficult.

Sorry, this is long but, I have a feeling I won’t be posting a lot unless it’s profiles or asks.

I’m a very much newbie and rookie to writing, it’s really not great but, I do have ideas and I want to share them, that’s why these are here. So, I would very much appreciate tips, and help whether that be story plot, rewording, or just spelling and grammar. And I’m an avid want a dash of romance not the main focus because I cringe A lot type of reader, the same type of writer as well. So advice on writing romance and dialogue is a must, that’s why I’m planning on the romance to be a more minor part.

I also realized I should probably focus on finishing writing the first part of the demo I’m planning to release in one of the upcoming months or weeks. And also, post something about the personalities the Mc can have. ❤️

Thank you for reading my rambling and being interested in my if.💗

~~~

Character Count: 51553 (just the story not including profiles, glossary or world lore)

Word Count: 8567

Features(first part is same bottom is new):

-Meeting the Mentor and Homie(By having a flashback) and setting their gender

-Customizing Mc including hair color, length, skin tone, name, nickname, petname, gender

-Finding out about your Father and seeing a new side to your mother

-Age from 16 to 20(idk if that's significant-)

-Choosing a personality type from Diplomat, Charmer, Fighter, Scholar, Spiritual, and Deceiver

-Choosing to be a early bird or night owl

-Go on an errand and have your Mentor kidnap you casually

-Profiles in-game are done technically though I have to add actual descriptions of their personalities and skills but, the ones here are currently way more detailed

-Are you more expressive or expressionless?(will be applied differently depending on personality)

-Will receive something from your Mentor

-Start your Journey To Nadripur and stuff

-Find out the Mc’s eyecolors

-Learn some Banglish(Bengali-English)

-Find out more about the world you live in

-Either be as rude as possible to a old man or attempt to be less rude to a older lady(Mentor)

-Choosing to be more decisive or indecisive

#update #goldendusk #interactive story #itch.io #twine #twine interactive fiction #twine sugarcube #word count #send me asks

[thefugitivesaint]

Chitra Ganesh, ''Sultana's Dream'', 2018 Source “This project is inspired by Sultana’s Dream, a 1905 feminist utopian text written by an early Bengali feminist writer and social reformer, Rokeya Sakhhawat Hossain. Educated thanks to the support of her family, Hossian was one of the few elite Bengali women of her generation writing in English. Sultana’s Dream was written over the course of an afternoon. It was first published in the Ladies’ Journal, a women’s literary magazine based in Madras, appearing some 10 years before Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s iconic feminist utopic novel Herland. Sultana’s Dream, though not as widely known, holds a singular position among early feminist science fiction literature. This series of prints draws on Hossain’s vibrant imagery, translating a story written in verse into a visual grammar that connects with problems that shape 21st century life: apocalyptic environmental disaster, the disturbing persistence of gender-based inequality, the power of the wealthy few against the economic struggles of the majority, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts that cause widespread death and suffering. Created in a form that is historically foundational to the idea of public discourse, this series of works comments through form and content on this fraught moment in world history, demonstrating the enduring relevance of feminist utopia imaginaries in offering an invaluable means of envisioning a more just world.” (Source)

#chitra ganesh #american artists #linocuts #rokeya sakhhawat hossain #sultana's dream #feminist utopia #utopian #early science fiction

[langbloor]

On Language, Pronouns, and Gender - Part II : Hindi

TL;DR : Hindi has no gendered pronouns but has gendered verbs. Every noun is gendered in Hindi - even abstract nouns such as ideas, phenomena, concepts, etc. Verb inflections and second person pronouns in a sentence encode that gender information.

Link to Masterpost

Part I : Japanese

Part III : Bengali

Note : I am a native Hindi speaker but not a linguist. I last studied hardcore Hindi grammar in 8th grade and I am in my mid-20s which means I may write things that purists may find off. If I make a grammar mistake, feel free to point out/correct me/start a discussion. But be polite about it please!

You read that TL;DR right! Hindi has no gendered pronouns! Despite that, I think Hindi is one of, if not the most gendered languages out there. Though, gender in Hindi, to me personally as a native speaker, feels much more nebulous than in English - not sure if all native speakers agree since gender is something so personal and unique to a person. Especially in their native language!

The amusing part about gender in Hindi is that it gets assigned to words regardless of whether they are living or nonliving, animate or inanimate, concrete or abstract. Nouns conveying ideas, concepts, phenomena, etc have a gender. Most of these things aren't even capable of using a first/second/third person identifier! So maybe using verbs to include gender information of things and ideas sorta makes sense....? (note : this is how I justify Hindi's gender bs and this is my conspiracy theory, not a known fact and I might be completely off).

Let's take a deeper look at this and consider the Hindi translation to the English proverb - 'To each their own'. The English proverb isn't gendered and uses the explicitly gender neutral pronoun 'their' to denote the gender neutrality of the usage of 'Own'. The Hindi alternative is 'जैसी जिसकी सोच / Jaisi jiski soch'. The transliteration of that would actually be 'Whatever one's own thinking may be' but the contextual usage of the phrase is the same as 'To each their own'. Hindi speakers or folks even vaguely familiar with Hindi will notice the usage of 'जैसी/Jaisi' or 'जिसकी/jiski' - both of which are gendered female usage of 'Whatever/how ever/whichever' and 'one's own/their own'. So what's going on here? Does the Hindi version imply the proverb is only for female identifying folks? No! That's because unlike the English alternative, it is not the 'own' that is being gendered here! It is सोच/Soch! सोच means thought/think and can be used both as a noun (thought) and a verb (to think) and is gendered female. That's correct, no matter Your gender, all your thoughts are female. Both 'Jaisi' and 'Jiski' are gendering Soch/Thought. जैसा जिसका सोच (Jaisa jiska soch), which uses the male inflections 'jaisa' and 'jiska' would be grammatically incorrect since the subject of the phrase is still the female word 'Soch'. 'Own', which is the subject of the English version is actually folded into 'Jiski' and doesn't need to be explicitly stated here.

The above is an example of a gendered abstract noun. Now let's look at gendered verbs. Consider, once again -

English - I am eating (gender neutral)

Hindi (Male) - मैं खा रहा हूँ।(Main kha raha hoon)

Hindi (Female) - मैं खा रही हूँ। (Main kha rahi hoon)

The first person pronoun in both these translations is मैं/Main. Note that this 'Main' doesn't rhyme with chain and should instead be pronounced as something closer to Meh with the 'h' replaced by a nasal tone (don't feel like you have to get this right now, I'm just being explicit to slightly avoid things being wildly mispronounced due to the limitations of the English alphabet). The verb here is खा (kha/eat) with a progressive inflection denoted by 'रहा/raha' or 'रही/rahi'. हूँ /hoon is sort of an auxiliary verb and can be considered a translation for 'is'. The verb inflection (raha/rahi) is where the gender information here is. This is usually the case in Hindi for almost every noun. In very casual speech, you can again omit the first person pronoun and say 'kha raha hoon' or 'kha rahi hoon' (just like Japanese) but that still leaves you with the verbs where the gender information is encoded in. So what now? Is it impossible to escape the gender binary as a Hindi speaker? Well, not quite. Here are a few suggestions on how to go gender neutral in Hindi-

Suggestion 1 : Polite Speech with Second Person Pronouns

Hindi, like most Asian languages, has a casual speech and a polite speech. Polite speech in Hindi doesn't quite change how you refer to yourself in first person but the sentence structure significantly changes when speaking in second (or third) person. The English second person pronoun 'You' simply doesn't capture all the connotations and context. Here are the levels of politeness in Hindi (M is male gendered and F is female gendered)-

Rude/Very Casual - तू/तेरा/तेरी (Tu/Tera (M)/Teri (F); You/yours)

Casual - तुम/तुम्हारा/तुम्हारी (Tum/Tumhara (M)/Tumhari (F); You/yours)

Polite - आप/आपका/आपकी (Aap/Aapka (M)/ Aapki (F); You/yours)

There is actually no escaping the gender binary with the Casual/Rude versions. However, with the Polite version, you can, in most cases, get away with using the male inflections for any gender. Maybe there is a rant to be written somewhere about 'why male default?' here but that's not for this post or this blog at this time. The point here is, male inflections of आप don't sound off even if you are using them for non masc folks. Here's an example -

English - What will you eat?

Hindi (Polite, Explicitly female) - आप क्या खाएँगी? (Aap kya Khayengi?)

Hindi (Polite, Male/gender neutral alternative) - आप क्या खाएँगे? (Aap kya khayenge?)

I use she/her pronouns in English and female verb inflections in Hindi. If someone addressed to me with the 'Male' translation of 'What will you eat?' in order to not gender me, I won't find it odd at all. This doesn't quite work with तू/Tu or तुम/Tum - the casual You alternatives. If someone asked me 'Tu kya khayega? (Male version)' instead of 'Tu kya khayegi? (Female version)', ignoring the fact that they are being very rude, I would also find it weird and feel very misgendered. 'Tum kya khaoge?' (male version) wouldn't be very rude to me but I would again feel misgendered if I'm not asked 'Tum kya khaogi?' (Female) instead. Polite speech 'Aap' as a second person pronoun bypasses all that. But this is just second person and the rest of the language is still very gendered and you can't really be polite to everyone at all times - being polite to people too close to you or are your friends/peers may seem very weird. So what now? Consider suggestion 2.

Suggestion 2 : Plural First Person Pronoun as a gender neutral alternative

Fun fact about Hindi, the third person pronouns aren't really gendered - much like the first person pronouns. The casual third person pronoun in literary Hindi is वह (Wah, pronounced similar to Wuh) and the version that gets used in colloquial speech is वो (Wo). The polite literary version is वे (We, pronounced similar to Way) though it doesn't get frequently used in colloquial speech and verb inflections paired with वो/Wo are used to contextualize politeness levels. However, these are all gender neutral pronouns and once again, the gender information gets packed into the verbs. But hold on now, this is all standard textbook Hindi and this isn't all there is to it!

So uh, remember when I said I use female first person verb inflections? Well, that's not quite true because I speak Bihari Hindi. Hindi vastly differs regionally. Bollywood Hindi often reflects what my mom calls Mumbaiya Hindi or at most Delhi Hindi. They do 'try' to highlight UP Hindi or Bihari Hindi from time to time, but it never feels natural and, as a native Bihari Hindi speaker, I can always tell if it was rehearsed or if the actor speaks like this natively (Drop in my askbox if you want me to judge an actor's Bihari or UP Hindi).

Something unique to the Hindi spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Eastern/Central UP is the usage of the plural first person pronoun 'हम/Hum' for self instead of a collective. Simply replacing the already gender neutral 'मैं/Main' may seem futile, but it does change the verb inflections. Watch this -

English - I am going.

Hindi (Standard, Female) - मैं जा रही हूँ। (Main ja rahi hoon.)

Hindi (Standard, Male) - मैं जा रहा हूँ। (Main ja raha hoon.)

Hindi (Bihari, Gender neutral) - हम जा रहे हैं। (Hum ja rahe hain.)

And voila! We have gotten rid of the gendered progressive raha/rahi and instead changed it to the gender neutral 'rahe (pronounced - rahey)'. Note that contemporary standard Hindi would classify the Bihari Hindi alternative as grammatically incorrect for first person singular and only to be used for first person plural. But as someone who speaks Bihari Hindi, this is how I talk. Most of my speech when referring to myself is gender neutral. When I refer to others, I often use male inflections with the exception of second or third person casual speech (Tu/Tum or Wo sentences). This approach does have a few caveats. If you already speak standard Hindi and are not around Bihari/UP Hindi constantly, it might be hard to suddenly switch or pick it up from scratch. The other, even worse caveat is stigma. Bihar and UP are among some of the states where blue collar workers migrate out of the state to earn their bread. Bihari Hindi, nationwide, very much has an image of the working class associated with it and is looked down upon due to the classism and casteism ingrained in Indian society. I speak Bihari Hindi unbashedly, because that is me and I am not going to change how I talk just because other people may find it 'odd', but if you are outside of the Eastern Gangetic Plains and considering switching to Bihari Hindi for gender neutrality, people may find your Hindi 'weird' and comment on it.

Suggestion 3 : Change the subject

Another thing to note is nuance and context and how much of that omits personal gender information. We noted above that 'Jiski' in the 'To each their own' translation already folds in 'own', entirely removing the need to gender it. Similarly, you can do this trick where you change the subject of your sentence to something else entirely and remove the need to gender people. Here's an example -

English - What do you think about this? (Gender neutral, second person)

Hindi (male, casual) - इस बारे में तुम क्या सोचते हो? (Is barey me tum kya sochte ho?)

Here, 'sochte' is the male inflection for 'soch' (think). Female version would be 'sochti'. Here are some gender neutral alternatives (underlining the new subjects and their gender inflections)-

इस बारे में तुम्हारी क्या राय है? (Is barey me tumhari kya raay hai?)

इस बारे में तुम्हारा क्या ख़याल है? (Is barey me tumhara kya khayal hai?)

इस बारे में तुम्हारी सोच क्या है? (Is barey me tumhari soch kya hai?)

New subjects were : Raay (opinion; male), Khayal (thought, opinion; male), Soch (thought; female). Note that synonyms may have different genders. But that's not the beast I am tackling in this post. I have successfully made multiple 'gender neutral' alternatives to a sentence that was gendering the person I was talking to! I may have changed the original English to 'What are your thoughts/opinions on this?' in the process, but the overall meaning was retained. These three are not even the only options. Honestly, just find nouns that can replace your verbs and change the subject to the new noun you found and then gender that! Simple, yeah? Hmm no not really. All of this is actually very instinctive for native speakers and the mess that gender in Hindi is, takes time to learn and work through.

Despite all that, I do feel more nebulous about gender in Hindi than I do in English. Maybe the fact that everything is gendered has something to do with it? Native speakers misgender things in Hindi all the time, though in a very specific way that is very hard for me to put my finger on as a native speaker myself. Although, native speakers can tell when non-native speakers misgender things because sometimes, they get caught up in who to gender in their verbs, themselves or the abstract thing they are talking about. More than often, non-native speakers gender themselves in a sentence instead of the concept, which is the subject that should be gendered. Hindi translation of 'Your thoughts' will always have 'thoughts' gendered instead of 'your' for instance. It is not like native speakers are perfectly clear about what to gender in a sentence either, but we don't think about it and go with a gut feeling - something that you can only develop in a language after either years or practice or cultural assimilation or if it is your native language.

I always have a lot to say about Hindi and gender in Hindi but this is where this post ends. Gender is difficult in Hindi but maybe us Hindi speakers should think more about it and talk more about it and try to come up with our own approaches on how to respect people's genders and gender nonconformity in our language. Much internal conversation needs to be had!

Check out Part I here if you haven't already and see you in Part III!

#hindi #long reads #south asia #gender and language #pronouns #verbs

[englishgrammarportal]

Gender in English Grammar

Gender definition

Gender এর আভিধানিক অর্থ হল লিঙ্গ । স্ত্রী ও পুরুষ কে পৃথক ভাবে বোঝাতে Noun ও Pronoun এর পরিবর্তিত রূপকে বলা হয় Gender বা লিঙ্গ ।

Contents

What is Gender in simple words ? /  Gender definition sociology

আরও সহজ ভাষায় বলতে গেলে Gender হল সেই Noun বা Pronoun যা একজন মানুষকে সমাজের কাছে স্ত্রী অথবা পুরুষ হিসেবে একটি পৃথক পরিচয় প্রদান করে ।

Continue reading

#gender in English Grammar #Gender in English Grammar in Bengali

[banglanotebook]

LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY CHALLENGE: south asia and central asia

G U J A R A T I  |  ગુજરાતી

EXONYM | Gujarati [ˌɡʊdʒəˈrɑːti] ENDONYM | ગુજરાતી [ɡudʒəˈɾɑtiː]

LOCATION | Gujarati is the official language of Gujarat, and, by extension, an official language of India. Gujarati is recognized and taught as a minority language in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Pakistan has a considerable number of native speakers as well. The largest concentration of diasporic Gujarati speakers is in the United States.

POPULATION | Approximately 60 million speakers worldwide

BACKGROUND | Gujarati belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European, and is descended from Sanskrit through the western branch, making Gujarati’s closest siblings Rajhastani and Romani. Farsi, Arabic, Sanskrit, English, and Portuguese have left significant marks on Gujarati’s lexicon. Gujarati dialects are heavily affected by religion, which determines where a Gujarati speakers draws much of their vocabulary.

GRAMMAR | SOV is the favored word order for Gujarati, with adjectives coming before nouns, and the employment of postpositions as opposed to prepositions. Gujarati has three grammatical genders and two grammatical numbers. 

PHONOLOGY | Sanskrit lends much of its phonology to Gujarati. Oral and nasal distinction is present in Gujarati, as are murmured and aspirated sounds. Some dialects only have [s], while some prefer [ʃ]. There are others that include both. There is a colloquial register of Gujarati that replaces [s], or both [s] and [ʃ], with a voiceless [h] instead; this does not apply to Sanskritic words though. Like in many other Indo-Aryan languages, [z] is not an original member of Gujarati’s inventory and is only pronounced in loan words. Even then, most speakers will replace [z] with /dʒ/ or /dʒʱ/.

SCRIPT | Gujarati is written left to right in a Nagari abugida. However, unlike many other Nagari scripts, Gujarati’s script is easily recognized by its lack of a horizontal line, leaving strokes suspended on paper rather than anchored. Gujarati has characters that represent sounds that are no longer used (like distinctions between long vowels and short ones), which only now remain for spelling. It also lacks characters to differentiate between murmured vowels and clear vowels as these developments are newer than the script itself. The script also contains a myriad of conjunct characters, which represent joined sounds.

SWADESH LIST

માથું [mɑtʰũ] | head

વાળ [ʋɑɭ] | hair

નાક [nɑk] | nose

આંખ [ɑ̃kʰə] | eye

મોં [mõ] | mouth

ગળું [ɡəɭũ] | neck

છાતી [tʃʰɑti] | chest

WHY GUJARATI? | I’m studying Bangla and Gujarati is Bengali’s cousin, so I wanted to learn more about languages in the same family as the one I’m learning. I also feel that despite being an official language in India, on an international scale (and throughout Langblr) Gujarati is one of the more underappreciated languages of South Asia. Gujarati’s script is super pretty too and I appreciate how it differs from other Nagari scripts.

#linguisticdiversitychallenge #linguistic-diversity-regions #linguisticdiversityregions #languages #langblr #studyblr #gujarati #linguistics #lingblr #South Asia #south asian #South Asian Languages #Asian #asia #Asian languages #india #indian #gujarat #indo-european #indo-iranian #indo-aryan #linguistic-diversity-challenge

[she-learns]

10 reasons why you should learn Bangla/Bengali

it’s the mother tongue of about 250 million people, putting it in the 7th place for most spoken language in the world in terms of numbers of native speakers.

it’s the only language in the world for which people sacrificed their blood. in 1952 when Pakistan government forcibly attempted to make Urdu the national language of East Pakistan (current Bangladesh), people of the Bangladesh protested and many of them were killed in the fight for language.

in 1999, UNESCO announced Februray 21 as International Mother Language Day to celebrate language diversity and variety worldwide. The date represents the day 21st February 1952 when four young students were killed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Bangla is spoken mainly in Bangladesh and some states of India. However, there’s a significant amount of native bangla speakers living in the UK; USA, Canada and Australia also have many Bengali immigrants so chances of you meeting a bangla speaker is not low even if you don’t go to South Asia.

Now, now, now, let’s get down to the MAIN reason why i think more people should learn Bangla: THE LITERATURE!!! Bangla literature is absolutely magnificent. The contribution of thousands of  Bengali poets and novelists made our literature very rich and unique. We have Rbindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win nobel prize in literature. Even though you may find English translations of many famous Bangla books, there are countless wonderful novels that haven’t been translated to English as Bangla is not a very recognized language in other parts of the world. I, personally, think those books are worth learning Bengali for.

The MUSIC!!! We have many great musicians and singers with many different genres of music. Old bangla song from 1892 or modern bangla rap from 2017, song from a farmer’s voice or song from a fisher’s voice, song from East Bengal or song from West Bengal, song from a Mosque or song from a temple- each one of them has their own distinct beauty that makes Bangla music so lovable.

The movies! and TV shows! and natoks(telefilms)! both Bangladesh and West Bengal produces excellent qualities of movies and shows. Bengali film industry is blessed with brilliant legendary filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Humayun Ahmed, Rituporno Ghosh, Zahir Raihan etc.

Bangla is not hard to learn! Bangla language is relatively easy comparing to many other languages such as korean, japanese or arabic. Even if you’re a native English speaker, you’ll find is easy to learn Bangla once you get the pronunciation and the structure.

Bangla grammar is easy too! Unlike many languages, Bangla doesn’t have grammatical gender in inanimate objects. It doesn’t even have gender specific pronouns (i, personally, love this fact). Unlike some languages, it doesn’t have silent letters and words are spelled as it is pronounced.

If you are a native Arabic, Farsi or Hindi/Urdu speaker, you’ll find learning Bangla even easier as its vocabulary consists many words from those languages.

#aaaaah #it took me more than an hour to write this post #but finally i got it done #i've always wanted to make this post #bangla #bengali language #bengali literature #rabindrasangeet #bangladesh #india #south asia #asian languages #langblr #learning languages #polyglot #my post #Learning Bengali #bengali langblr

[freeonlinecours-blog]

Best Books and Websites to Learn Hindi

New Post has been published on https://ecoursesfree.com/awesome/best-books-and-websites-to-learn-hindi/

Best Books and Websites to Learn Hindi

This entry is about the best Hindi textbooks and resources that I use and like. I have lived in India for almost three years, have been married to an Indian for almost 5 years and have been learning Hindi for about 6 years however I am not a Hindi professor yet as I rarely get to really use it. At the moment my Hindi usage is quite passive and I use my all Hindi for listening and abruptly answering. I seldom read Hindi books or papers, although I try and force myself to do this from time to time in order to improve it at the least a little. So here goes Hindi resources beginning with the Hindi level: HINDI BOOKS: 1. “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi Script” by Rupert SnellThis is a book for those who want to learn Hindi script or Devanagari script. The writer introduces Devanagari characters unit-by-unit and step-by-step. In the introduction he advises on how to use the book and keeps encouraging the whole time on how to study and practice the script. There are handwritten Devanagari versions provided together with the stroke order. The book also teaches 100 the more common Devanagari consonant conjuncts and tricks on how to easily recollect. You are very much likely to learn some great and simple but useful Hindi vocabulary, test yourself through workouts, learn from real life Devanagari posters and to be informed about a little about Indian culture and North Indian speeches. The volume is very well written and professionally presented by an experienced Hindi tutor. You will always feel guided and will definitely learn the Hindi script by the time you finish it.2. “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi” with a Cd by Rupert Snell”Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi” book and Cd is the best Hindi grammar for beginner’s that I could ever dream of. It is simple, it is well organized, it teaches through dialogues, instances and comparings. Hindi is always written in both: Devanagari and English transliteration. It has exercisings for testing the ego and a CD, if you’re a complete novice. I think this volume encompasses the basics of Hindi grammar in a very friendly, supportive route where everything is easy and well-explained. If you complete every division very carefully, there is a good chance you’ll have a firm base to utilize basic Hindi by the time you finish the book. I loved that book because I loved the style that it was written, the characters, the dialogues and the pictures. It seemed that the person who wrote it is in love with Hindi and that really motivates and inspires. I are truly recommend the CD too.3. “Teach Yourself Hindi” by Rupert Snell”Teach Yourself Hindi” is a grammar that is one step above the “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi” in a way that it is more advanced. It is thicker, it has more rules, more dialogues, more text, more Devanagari, more phrases and expressions and it ceases writing the transliteration after few divisions. It is a great Hindi grammar volume if you want it complete. However if you’re a complete novice and it’s the first you’re studying an Asian speech, you might get overwhelmed by how quickly the tempo gets after just a few units. In this case I would recommend “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi” which is designed for novices. “Teach Yourself Hindi” also comes in a CD pack or you can buy a volume+ a CD separately. 4. “Hindi, Urdu& amp; Bengali: Lonely Planet Phrasebook”I bought this phrasebook not only because I am teaching myself Hindi but also because I totally want to learn Bengali too. This phrasebook has a short intro into the grammars of all these languages, basic phrases and numerical systems plus vocabularies at the end. It covers the most used phrases and casual express, Indian food menus and cultural notes. It is small, it is good, it is concise and that’s all I want from a phrasebook.5. “GCSE Hindi” by J. S. NagraI first determined this volume in library in the UK. This volume was last published in 1992 and may appear a little outdated in some manner. However it appeared to be extremely useful for me as it had all Hindi GCSE( 12 class exam) newspapers in it. The volume is divided into four components: reading, listening, speaking and writing and is supposed to come with an audio cassette, however that is not for sale. In any case, I detected thematic texts and word lists of big help and I think it’s very good if you want to find out what Hindi level are you and can you pass a GCSE exam. I would recommend it as an additional resource in studying Hindi.6. “Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary” by Rupert Snell”Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary” is a user friendly dictionary for novices. It has all the words that appeared in Rupert Snell’s “Teach Yourself Hindi” volumes. Each term is written in Devanagari and transliterated into Roman script. It is extremely useful as a situate of words you need to know to enter the higher level of Hindi. However it is too small if you intend to read Hindi classical fictions or poetry. For the above reasons you might need a big Oxford dictionary.7. “The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary” by R. S. McGregor”The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary” is probably the biggest Hindi to English dictionary you could ever find and need. It is a proper thick and heavy dictionary that you’re expected to use when you severely study a language. It is all arranged according to Hindi alphabetical order( Devanagari order) so you may need to attach stickers that could help you navigate in this massive quantity of words. It maybe hard to get used to it at first but after employing it for some time, you’ll become faster and faster and it will help your Hindi more than the electronic dictionary. This dictionary might turn very useful if you’re reading Hindi classics such as Premchand .8. “Outline of Hindi Grammar” by R.S. McGregorI use “Outline of Hindi Grammar” for grammar reference. This book seems a little more complicated and scientific than Rupert Snell’s “Teach Yourself Hindi”. “Outline of Hindi Grammar” starts with the Devanagari script shown in handwritten form. The teaching technique is not very different from Ruper Snell’s and that’s why I like this volume. It offers a wider, more detailed and more scientific Hindi perspective.* Please note that the cover-ups of some volumes by Rupert Snell may differ as there has been a new edition. These are the covers of the books that I bought 5 years ago. Please go by the title if you’re interested in buying these books.HINDI Websites: 1. Hindi Urdu Flagship Program sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin and has a free online Hindi resource library that provides free Hindi textbooks, media library, podcasts and Hindi worksheets developed by the author Rupert Snell himself. 2. A Door Into Hindi a Hindi teaching website that provides short Bollywood style movies that are intended to teach Hindi utilizing different situations. The same cinema has a script written in Devanagari and a vocabulary going with it. Also, there are games and exerts that providing assistance to testing oneself. It is actually enjoyable and cultural experience. 3. Devanagari Script Tutor is a website for learning Devanagari script with the emphasis on the similar sounds such as ka, kha, ga, gha that are difficult for many Hindi students to distinguish. It is a game type software that is created in accordance with Rupert Snell’s textbooks by Richard Woodward. I have use it for the first one or two weeks after I completed “Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi Script”. It was really effective and helped me understand discrepancies between the Hindi sounds. 4. Crazy Lassi’s Hindi Lessons it is my Hindi blog that contains chiefly word lists, basic phrases, intro to Devanagari and beginner’s grammar accompanied with YouTube Hindi videos that my husband and I built. You might find it useful if you haven’t bought Hindi textbooks yet. This blog can be used as an additional reference while studying your own Hindi course but should not be taken for granted as it is an amateur speech blog. 5. Google Hindi-English-Hindi translator is likely one of the best online. I have tried some and I always stick to this one. This translator is pretty good if you want to translate single words and very common phrases but it can be weak in translating instances, genders and plurals. It is great, again, because it automatically transliterates your Hindi written in English and it offers the pronunciation too. It is simple, popular and good enough for simple translations.

Read more: learnhindifree.blogspot.com

#book #grammar #hindi #more #rupert #script #yourself

[brieffarmclamcop]

Today I recalled my blog.

A tribute to the legend star ruling on the hearts of her fans. I had seen very few films but remember this lullaby from the film Sadama. An innocent child hidden in her appealed me and others too.

' Suramayee Akhiyon me........! '

An emotional heart touching song in soft music. OH GOd....! Her exit is Sadama....shock to every one.

39/2016

English Vinglish...Kannada Binnada...!

Yesterday I was watching the climax scene of the movie. Shashi was giving an inspiring 5 minutes speech in English, at her niece's wedding. What ever she was speaking was creating an impact on the guests and classmates audience. Her husband was not confident of her speech. The class teacher handed over her the certificate in applause, after her speech. Her classmates were from different countries. Their ways of understanding English and reproducing it through their styles were amazing one. The entire episode was an emotional to make viewers involved and unable to stop the tears in their eyes. Forget the actors on the screen but the viewers too. Don't you make to cry the emotional, heart touching scenes of drama, cinema or the incidences happening surrounding you. Usually the lady viewers can't control it.

One thing always comes in my mind, how the music composers direct the singers from different language ? Here the singer has to sing the words with the emotions attached to them. And the song becomes hit. When a Marathi singer attempts a south Indian song or vice e versa. It is not limited to ours only but in foreign languages too. The Russians fall in love and sing the Raj Kapoor creation ' Awara hun...' If I say the music directors or the singers are the true National Integrators, nothing wrong in it.

I started thinking about the languages I speak. This scene inspired me to learn one more language and to enjoy the emotional aspect. Luckily we have so many languages being spoken in our country. Still our heart language is one. We must be proud of it. The famous ' Mile sur mera tumhara ...' Sung by various artists of different languages. Or the melodious songs from the film ' Sound Of Music '. The notes Do Re Mi....and Sa Re Ga..Ma..create oneness. It is very easy to access these languages. How ? I tell you a story.

Last week I had an opportunity to attend a farewell party to a retiring officer. After the speeches, bouquet , gift presentations and photo session during the dinner I met his wife who knows number of languages. English, Hindi,Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati,Telugu, Tamil....Oh God ! the list was unending.

' Madam, it's wonderful. Tell me the magic behind this multi linguistic art.?'

' Sir, I am a Mumbaikar....and the society where we used stay was a mini India, We had a nice rapport with each other. We had a gathering on number of occasions and events. '

' Fantastic, so it was an exchange of culture and language.'

' Definitely, not only this but we learn so many cousins, the fashions and music and dance... Ugadi, Navaratri, Nadhubba,Durga puja, Onam..... celebrations...OH..! It was a wonderful experience of the colours of happiness.'

' Can you speak Bengali..?' My curiosity did not keep me mum.

' No..but I can sing the songs like ...'

And she immediately switch on her hidden juke box....She started singing the famous

' Ekla chalo..Ekla chalo... Ekla chalo re...' by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagor.

I learned ' Bhalo Asin...' and ' Kem Chho..'...' Vannakam ' from the morning walkers. I try to speak broken Gujarathi...mixed with Hindi. My Marathi is very bad....the typical Belgaum tone...the mixing of genders is a subject matter of joke. The grammar never troubles me while connecting them. There after I started writing poems and blogs in Marathi. And the love about my mother tongue Marathi enhanced. I do like to write comments on various posts which was a great help. So let's switch over to Madam's story.

After marriage she left the job in bank and started her classes. Being a teacher , she was connected to all the families and the parents in the society. Here she acquired the the source of languages. She grabbed it as if a student with full devotion. Her fluency in language helped her to become a popular teacher.

I speak four languages almost daily. My friend circle, the morning swimmers group and the salesman on the door from different parts of the country. I enjoy these languages. My friends always confuse when I shift from one to other.

' You start in Marathi, your game starts...Kannada...Hindi..English ....and the mixing. How do you manage it ? '.

' Koshish karo aur maja lo...not so difficult...Bolun tar bagh...Baratade...swalp try mad beka...'

Madam inspired me to learn more and more.

Just imagine you are learning the language and at the end of class you are delivering a small speech like Shashi Godbole.....How would you feel....? Let's all experience the thrill in these languages.

ASHOK HAVALDAR

[translationworkzones-blog]

Certified Translation Services In Delhi | Translation Workzone

Bengali Words Having Different Origins

Bengali Language has around 100,000 different words, 50,000 of which are its own, while 21,100 originated from Sanskrit which is considered the mother of all languages. The remainder consist of loan words from Austro-Asiatic plus other foreign languages. Due to centuries of contact with Persians and Turkish people, the Bengali has absorbed a host of words from foreign languages. And the most common of these borrowings from the foreign languages are derived from three different types of contact. Thus, after contact with different native Austro-Asiatic languages, while later the Mughal invasion, whose Persian was the court language, different Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai words were incorporated into its lexicon. To know more about Translation Services In Delhi you can mail us we will provide you compelet information. 

Bengali Grammar

Did you know that Bengali language grammar is gender free? Yes, it is and this is some good news for the English speakers. Even though there exist no gendered nouns in the language, there are several subtle inflection that are spoken in Bengali that may take some time to master. Particularly verbs are quite hard since they’re inflected heavily, and wrong inflection is going to alter their case plus the whole meaning. This may either turn into some hilarious situation or horrifying one. For more details about Translation Services in Delhi you can visit our site. 

#Top Translation Company in India #translation company in india #translation companies in India #Translation Agency in India #Language Translation Company in Delhi #Translation agencies in Delhi #Document Translation Services in Delhi #Translation Companies in Delhi #Translation agency in Gurgaon #\Translation Company in Gurgaon #Document Translation Services in Gurgaon #translation agencies #translation companies #document translation services #document translation companies #document translation agencies #localization services in delhi #localization companies in delhi #localization agencies in delhi

[translationworkzoneblog-blog]

5 Interesting Facts About Marathi Language

Marathi remains an Indo-Aryan language. It is being spoken by people residing in western India or Maharashtrians. Marathi dialect is approved as the primary language in Maharashtra. The language is being spoken by approximately 90 million fluent speakers globally. When considering the number of people speaking the language, it is currently ranked fourth in India. In Indo-Aryan languages, Marathi along with Bengali is the oldest of the regional literatures, dating from about 1000 AD. Records have shown that the language is 1500 years old. Marathi derives its syntax and grammar from Prakrit and Pali. In early times, the language is also known as Maharathi, Maharashtri, Marathi or Malhatee in ancient times. Is your quest for learning Marathi or translation in Marathi? Do you reside in Maharashtra and searching for interesting facts about Marathi language or you are a business looking for a document translation services in Mumbai? Well, if your looking for translation in Marathi a company providing translation services in Mumbai would be your best bet but if you’re seeking answers to your questions, then you have come to the right place.

Cultural Facts About Marathi Language:

1. Lavani is a well-known Marathi folk dance

2. Sangeet Natak is a unique flavor of the Marathi drama

3. Diwali anka remain special versions of the magazines for Diwali

4. Vasanr Vyakhyanmala is known as scholarly discourses or lectures in Spring

Linguistic Facts About Marathi Language:

1. The language maintains the Sanskrit locative case

2. There is a huge dialectal variation in colloquial Marathi language to a large degree. Studies have shown that a variation of forty-two dialects can be found in Marathi

3. The language shows the exclusive and inclusive we component when compared to other Indo-European dialects

4. A huge amount of variation with the dialects in Marathi is mainly phonological and lexical

Voice Positioning In Marathi Language:

There is a 3rd kind of voice that may not be located in English in the Marathi language. This is often noticed when the verb agrees with either object or subject. The verb alters with respect to the subject in a sentence construction. The active voice remains when the verb alters with respect to the subject in a given sentence. In English, passive voice is when the verb change according to the object. These alterations can as well be found in the Marathi language.

Affixation In Marathi Language:

It is important to know that affixation remains suffical in the Marathi language. In fact, it is unequivocal that postpositions are attested in the language.

Marathi Language Verbs:

Marathi verbs can be found in several forms such as the future, present and past tense. When verbs agree with their objects, it produces a passive voice construction. When verbs also agree with their subjects, then they yield an active voice construction.

Conclusion:

In most cases, Marathi adjectives will not reflect until they end in long a. This will only occur when they signify number and gender. Most of Marathi loan words emanate from Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The neural gender found in Sanskrit is preserved in Marathi language. This feature helps to distinguish Marathi language from other Indo-Aryan dialects. Our

translationservices in Mumbai

accounts for appropriate Marathi translations that will simplify & improve your company’s communication in Marathi & Mumbai. You can give us a call today for more information.

[langbloor]

On Language, Pronouns, and Gender - Introduction

I've been thinking about how languages facilitate or inhibit gender expression a lot lately. Languages are fundamentally a form of expression - both of the self and of the culture and the community the language originated from/belongs to/spoken by. And so is gender! Gender is both a construct reflective of the society that makes those constructs and at the same time can become a means to express yourself. Language, when used for gender expression becomes a tool to paint a picture of self, and when language doesn't have enough or obvious tools to do so, free gender expression ensures growth of linguistics by either bringing out the tools that already exist/existed to the forefront or by giving new meaning to words and phrases that help explore and express one's own gender identity. Gender discourse is never ever separate from a linguistic discussion - discourses surrounding the usage of they/them as singular pronouns or usage of 'queer' as an umbrella term for a myriad of gender and sexual identity exploration instead of a slur, are great examples.

But This specific post, or rather series of posts, will probably only bring up those discussions in the background and will not focus on that. I am not a native english speaker by any means, despite feeling confident enough to choose it as my primary mode of writing. I'm also no linguist and my sole reason for creating this blog is rambling about languages as a hobby. There are also other, more qualified blogs who have talked about gender expression in English and with English being their first and in some cases, only language, the relevance of an Anglocentric queer discourse is more for them and they have much more authority than me to speak on it. That being said, if you are someone whose major life interactions are solely in English, let me tell you, my friend, how beautiful the world of gender exploration in other languages can be! The intention of this post is to discuss pronouns and rudimentary gender expression in three different languages that have an evolutionary history and grammar syntax vastly different from English. This will be a three part post discussing three languages - Part I : Japanese, Part II : Hindi, and Part III : Bengali. The idea is also to show that queer people of different communities queer differently and have different language tools at their disposal that sometimes aren't available outside of that sphere.

This post is just the intro to the series. Links here to all three posts -

Part I : Japanese (Has gendered pronouns, no gendered verbs)

Part II : Hindi (No gendered pronouns, has gendered verbs)

Part III : Bengali (No gendered pronouns, no gendered verbs)

#gender and language #long post #south asia #east asia #hindi #bengali #japanese #pronouns #verbs

[langbloor]

On Language, Pronouns, and Gender - Part III : Bengali

TL;DR : Bengali has no gendered pronouns and no gendered verbs so this is actually a much shorter read! So when you find a Bengali person struggling to learn the gender hoops of your language, keep in mind that these hoops don't exist in their native tongue!

Link to Masterpost

Part I : Japanese

Part II : Hindi

Note : I am an Indian native Bengali speaker but not a linguist. I have never formally studied Bengali grammar since I am a Probashi Bangali (a bengali person who has moved out of the Bengal region). I do speak it at home but am very likely to make grammar/spelling errors or mention things unique to 'Indian' Bengali. You are very welcome to start a discussion with me about things if you notice something off, but please be polite about it!

Amar shonar Bangla! No gender information in any part of speech at all! What a wonderful language! Here's an example to show how translations to Bangla turn things gender neutral -

English - He is eating.

Bangla (polite) - উনি খাচ্ছেন (Uni khacchen, gender neutral)

The pronoun in the Bengali sentence is 'Uni' - gender neutral polite third person pronoun. The casual version would be -

Bangla (casual) - ও খাচ্ছে (O khacche, gender neutral)

The pronoun changes from 'Uni' to 'O' but remains gender neutral. Verb inflection also changes from 'khacchen' to 'khacche' but again, remains gender neutral. Bangla is fairly strict about politeness levels and conveying respectability but simply does not care about gender at all. The sentence structure is similar to Hindi (subject-object-verb), but Hindi to Bangla translations also omit gender information. Watch this -

English - I am eating an apple (gender neutral)

Hindi (Standard) - मैं सेब खा रही हूँ। (Main seb kha rahi hoon ; Female)

Bangla - আমি আপেল খাচ্ছি। (Ami apel khacchi; gender neutral)

And an example where both English and Hindi are gendered but Bengali is not -

English - She is singing (Female she/her pronouns)

Hindi (casual) - वो गा रही है। (Wo ga rahi hai. Female 'rahi' verb inflection)

Bangla (casual) - ও গাইছে। (O gayichhe. Gender neutral 'O' pronoun, gender neutral casual verb inflection.)

Is that it? Is that the whole post? Well pretty much, but I do want to make a note of a few things. Consider this as my ending note for this series. When Bengali folks learn and speak Hindi not as a native language, they tend to misgender things. I have noticed this a lot less with Bengali English speakers, though it may happen sometimes. But Hindi's 'everything has a gender' messes things up. Non-native Hindi speakers from other parts of India who don't have to jump those mental hoops instinctively to gender things, make these mistakes when learning and speaking Hindi too (example - folks from South India). And more than often, their accent becomes the butt of jokes - among friends, within families, in movies, tv shows, and more. South Asia as a society is fairly insensitive to language differences - pretty ironic for a culture which doesn't really have one uniform language throughout (no, Hindi is not it), but maybe that's a rant for another time.

Bengalis are prone to misgendering things in Hindi but not because they don't respect your or someone else's gender. This is simply because Bangla conveys next to no gender information outside of proper nouns. Yes, proper nouns do have a 'gender'. There is a word for a 'girl' (মেয়ে/mey) and a 'boy' (ছেলে/chhele) and mother (মা/ma) and father (বাবা/baba) and more that are culturally gendered and viewed as such. But proper noun is the extent of gender information that gets conveyed in speech itself. If I were to translate 'She is a girl' to Bangla, I would say 'ও একটা মেয়ে' (O akta meye, casual) which is also a valid translation for 'He is a girl'. 'He' or 'She' is not in the language and any gender information or assumption is coded in the word মেয়ে (mey) which is the limit of what Bangla uses to provide context for gender.

That is all I have to say on gender and language things for now! If you haven't checked out the previous posts in the series, Part I is here and Part II is here. See you in other posts and maybe in the notes/askbox!

#gender and language #bengali #bangla #south asia #long reads #pronouns #verbs

[langbloor]

On Language, Pronouns, and Gender - Part I : Japanese

TL;DR : Japanese has gendered pronouns, no gendered verbs but gender can be omitted from most conversations, leaving it up to context.

Link to Masterpost

Part II : Hindi

Part III : Bengali

Note : Japanese is not my native language, but one I picked up as a hobby and can speak/understand well enough - which is just something I want you to keep in mind while reading this. I may make mistakes so if you are a native Japanese speaker or a fellow Japanese learner and catch something, do let me know (politely)!

All right, now let's get to it.

Japanese has gendered pronouns, very much like English. The binary alternatives being - 彼 （かれ/kare) for he/him and 彼女 （かのじょ/kanojo) for she/her. There is somewhat of a they/them alternative - 彼ら(かれら/karera) but unlike English, I'm not sure if there is a common linguistic usage of it as a singular They/Them alternative considering that this is basically adding the pluralizing suffix -ra/-ら to the he/him pronoun かれ/kare. Though, we must not fall into the trap of doing a one-to-one mapping to English because we may miss some really interesting quirks of both English and Japanese! The English 'They' is unique in its own right and the nuance and context 'they/them' inherently comes with is native to English and can't entirely be translated to other languages while retaining all the meaning 'they/them' pronouns hold. But wanna know a really fantastic thing about Japanese? You can omit pronouns in a sentence altogether and still be grammatically correct. Here's an example sentence -

English : He is eating.

Japanese (with pronouns): 彼は食べてる（かれはたべてる/kare wa tabeteru)

Japanese (no pronouns): 食べてる （たべてる/tabeteru)

Literal translation of the no pronouns version to English would simply be 'eating' or 'is eating'. But if you just point at a guy and yell 'eating' in English, while people won't think you're defying grammar, they may look at you weird. Tabeteru/食べてる is a perfectly fine alternative to 'She is eating' and 'I am eating' as well.

Though, note that this is not polite speech but casual speech (a feature English lacks! More points against 1-1 mapping!) and if you were to say this about a stranger or someone older than you/someone you should be respectful towards, you would say tabetemasu/食べてます or tabeterundesu/食べてるんです. Again, no need to add pronouns (no kare/kanojo/karera) for gender information or even the need to pluralize the verb and the only alteration is modifying the verbs with masu/ます or desu/です. I'm not Japanese and I have 0 knowledge or authority on how you can or should gender in Japanese, but Japanese as a language does give you the option of leaving out or outright eliminating your or other people's gender identity from conversations! Although, to me, as a consumer of subbed or translated Japanese media, this does show up as an issue when reading English subtitles. English forces you to add pronouns to a sentence. Translating 食べてる/tabeteru to Eating (casual) isn't how subtitles should read though that would be the most 'correct' translation that captures all the necessary information originally given in the sentence. But the translator is forced to say either 'He is eating' or 'She is eating' or 'They are eating', etc. This is a non issue when the character's gender has been clearly stated and clarified within the premise of the work. But when that's not the case, the translator's opinions/prior knowledge/biases enter the work. This could manifest in the form of, say, misgendering trans or non-binary or gnc characters, or dismantling literary structures which use the ambiguity to enrich the work, or maybe both! Either way, information that is communicated gets tampered with because of Japanese's unique pronoun and context usage.

Something that Japanese does have a bit more gendered than English is a gendered first person pronoun - this may still be a non-issue if you want to go gender neutral since first person pronouns can also be dropped from a sentence. But noting this here anyway. 私, which can be either read as わたし/Watashi or あたし/Atashi is a commonly used female first person pronoun. Common male first person pronouns can be 僕 (ぼく/Boku) or 俺 (おれ/Ore). Note that 僕/Boku is more polite and humble than 俺/Ore. Similarly 'We/Us' - first person pronouns to denote a collective - can also be gendered. The female version is 私たち (Watashitachi) or 私ら(Watashira) which adds the pluralizing suffix -たち (-tachi) or -ら(-ra) to 私(Watashi) and the male version is 僕ら (Bokura)/ 僕たち (Bokutachi) or 俺ら (Orera)/ 俺たち (Oretachi). A note on the usage - if you use 私(Watashi) as a pronoun and want to talk about a group that includes you but has people of multiple genders, you can still say 私たち(Watashitachi) or 私ら(Watashira) - in those cases, explicit gender info about the group is omitted from conversation as before, but now, you are sort of gendering yourself. Again, most of the times you can still get by without using pronouns at all, even in first person, which is something English forces you to do. Here are some examples -

English : I go to school (gender neutral)

Japanese (with pronouns) :

Female Pronouns (casual) : 私は学校へ行く(Watashi wa gakkou e iku)

Female Pronouns (polite) : 私は学校へ行きます(Watashi wa gakkou e ikimasu)

Male Pronouns (僕/Boku, casual) : 僕は学校へ行く (Boku wa gakkou e iku)

Male Pronouns (僕/Boku, polite) : 僕は学校へ行きます (Boku wa gakkou e ikimasu)

Note that the second half of both the gendered first person sentences remain the same even after you change genders - they only switch when you change from casual speech to polite speech. Verbs in Japanese do not contain gender information and pronouns can again be left out if you want to leave out gender information. Here are the gender neutral alternatives -

Casual Speech - 学校へ行く (gakkou e iku)

Polite Speech - 学校へ行く (gakkou e ikimasu)

Another somewhat gender neutral alternative that I have heard in extremely formal contexts (eg: voice actors and actors being polite on TV while thanking sponsors and stuff, etc) is Watakushi (わたくし). Funny story though, the Kanji/Chinese character for Watakushi is the same as Watashi - 私! So if you are writing, say a tweet, in formal speech, the character 私 can still likely be used as a gender omitting alternative, but you have to be super careful about context if you want to avoid getting gendered/misgendered! Another alternative which I guess is sort of gender neutral is 我が (Waga/わが). You may hear Waga quite a bit in period pieces but in modern colloquial usage, it may come up in the context of possession or showing ownership of something instead of a first person pronoun. 我が is fairly archaic and you may come off as pretentious if you try to use it as an alternative for 'I'. Could be because the 我 in 我が (Waga) means ego, selfishness, and points to the first person with a sense of pride in ownership, whereas the Kanji for Watashi (私) simply means self, private, or pointing to self without any implicit meaning.

Few example words in common vocabulary that use 我が - 我が儘 (Wagamama, selfish), 我が国 (Wagakuni, My/our country), 我が家 (Wagaya, my/our home; may sound pretentious?)

And that's all I have to say on Japanese pronouns and gender for now! Take translations/subtitles with a grain of salt and if you are learning Japanese in English, you may have to unlearn and relearn a few things for freely exploring your gender in Japanese. See you in Part II and Part III!

#japanese #gender and language #east asia #long reads #pronouns #verbs