Languages of the world: 7. Arabic

Languages of the world:

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD.  It includes the literary language and the spoken Arabic varieties.

The literary language is called Modern Standard Arabic. It is the only official form of Arabic.The spoken Arabic varieties are spoken in a wide territory stretching across the Middle East and North Africa.Arabic languages are Central Semitic languages, most closely related to Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic and Phoenician.

It is official in 26 states and it is also the liturgical language of Islam. Despite of its different dialects, the modern standard Arabic is widely taught in schools, universities, and used to varying degrees in workplaces, government and the media.

This language is the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group. It is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although some spoken varieties use Latin alphabet.

Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world, like Persian, Turkish, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Malay and Hausa. We can appreciate Arabic influence in languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Sicilian. Arabic language has also borrowed words from languages, for example Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Syriac, Turkish and English and French in recent times.

The major dialects groups are:

Egyptian (Spoken by 80 million people), Maghrebi (75 million people speak this dialect), Mesopotamian (Spoken by 36 million), Levantine (35 million speakers), Sudanese (30 million people), Yemeni (25 million speakers) and Najdi (10 million people).

The Arabic alphabet can be divided into two groups order.

• The original ’abjadī order (أَبْجَدِي):

غ

ظ

ض

ذ

خ

ث

ت

ش

ر

ق

ص

ف

ع

س

ن

م

ل

ك

ي

ط

ح

ز

و

ه

د

ج

ب

أ

gh

ẓ

ḍ

dh

kh

th

t

sh

r

q

ṣ

f

‘

s

n

m

l

k

y

ṭ

ḥ

z

w

h

d

j

b

’

• the newer hijā’ī order (with letters partially grouped together by similarity of shape, used where lists of names and words are sorted):

ي

و

ه

ن

م

ل

ك

ق

ف

غ

ع

ظ

ط

ض

ص

ش

س

ز

ر

ذ

د

خ

ح

ج

ث

ت

ب

أ

y

w

h

n

m

l

k

q

f

gh

‘

ẓ

ṭ

ḍ

ṣ

sh

s

z

r

dh

d

kh

ḥ

zh

th

t

b

’

Arabic is a language which lies far from English but still you may find some false friends such as:

• If you hear the word “when”(وين) in Arabic they are talking about where something is.
• If your name is Anna, you would be saying in Arabic “I” (أنا).

Here, at the University of Almería, you can find Arabic courses in our “Centro de Lenguas”

مع السلامة. (Ma’a salama) and do not forget to like us on Facebook !!!

Languages of the world: 6. Russian

Languages of the world:

Russian is a Slavic language spoken primarily in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is not an official language in Moldova, Latvia, Estonia but is widely spoken in these countries.

Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and its closest relatives are Ukrainian and Belarusian.

The standard well-known form of Russian is generally called the “Modern Russian Literary Language”. It arose in the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state by Peter the Great.

In the 20th century, Russian was widely taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. In particular, these countries include Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, former East Germany and Cuba.

The language possesses five vowels, which are written with different letters depending on whether or not the preceding consonant is palatalized. The consonants typically come in plain vs. palatalized pairs, which are traditionally called hard and soft. The standard language, based on the Moscow dialect, possesses heavy stress and moderate variation in pitch. Stressed vowels are somewhat lengthened, while unstressed vowels tend to be reduced to near-close vowels or an unclear schwa. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to 4 consecutive sounds.

Russian is written using a modified version of the Cyrillic (кириллица) alphabet. It consists of 33 letters:

А /a/	Б /b/	В /v/	Г /ɡ/	Д /d/	Е /je/	Ё /jo/	Ж /ʐ/	З /z/	И /i/	Й /j/
К /k/	Л /l/	М /m/	Н /n/	О /o/	П /p/	Р /r/	С /s/	Т /t/	У /u/	Ф /f/
Х /x/	Ц /ts/	Ч /tɕ/	Ш /ʂ/	Щ /ɕɕ/	Ъ /-/	Ы /ɨ/	Ь /ʲ/	Э /e/	Ю /ju/	Я /ja/

Russian Facts:

• It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages.
• There are around 155 million native speakers in the world, being the 8^th most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers.
• There are three genders: masculine, feminine and neutral
• There is no article.
• Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without.
• TheNovgorod Codex is considered to be the most ancient Russian book which dates back to the beginning of the 11th century.
• Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 780 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency.

False Friends:

• In Russian language, the word магазин (magazin) does refer to a shop and not to a magazine, which is said журнал(zhurnal).
• If you overhear the word  kабинет (kabinet) you need to know that they are referring to an office.
• There are more words similar to English like лук(Luk) that sounds similar to the name Luke, but the meaning is actually onion.
• Декорация, sounds like decoration but it is a setting, while to say decoration you need to use the word украшение.

Here, at the University of Almería, you can find Russian courses in our “Centro de Lenguas”

do vstrechi and visit us on Facebook !!!

Languages of the world: 4. Italian

Languages of the world:

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe (Italy, Switzerland and San Marino) and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia. It derives from Latin and it is part of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. Italian is related most closely to the other two Italo-Dalmatian languages, Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian.

Italian has got around 80 million speakers, mainly in Italy with 65 million native speakers, but also in Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, some regions of Slovenia and Croatia and large Communities in Argentina and Brazil.

The Italian language adopted by the state after the unification of Italy is based on the Tuscan (a language spoken mainly by the upper class of Florentine society.  Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city, since the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states.

Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, French, German, and Spanish.

Facts:

• Florentine dialect evolved into the so-called “Standard Italian” that is recognized today as the national language.
• Italian vocabulary has contributed many words to the English some of them are: gondola, regatta, fresco, vendetta, broccoli, pizza, spaghetti, cappuccino, fiasco, orchestra, piano, solo, a cappella, volcano, basilica, stucco, terracotta, and inferno.
• All words end in a vowel in Italian, with the exception of a few articles, prepositions, and foreign words.
• Italian language is completely phonetic, every letter corresponds to a specific pronounced sound, so we can say that it is read as it is written.
• Learning Italian will help with the grammar of other Romance languages, such as French, Spanish or Portuguese.
• There are different ways of saying “you”, these are: “tu” for people you know well and friends and the word “Lei” in other cases. The plural is, respectively, “voi” and “Loro”.

Some false friends in Italian are:

• The word camera in Italian means room whilst camera is macchina fotografica.
• Morbido is used in Italian to say that something is soft.
• Don’t look surprised if you receive coated almonds when asking for confetti.
• If you like something the correct word to use is mi piace (I like) and if you say mi piaci you are saying “I like you”.

Here, at the University of Almería, you can find Italian courses in our “centro de lenguas”.

Arrivederci and don’t forget to like us on Facebook !!!!!

Languages of the world: 3. German

Languages of the world:

German is a West Germanic language related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 100 million native speakers, German is one of the world’s major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.

Some of it its words come from Latin and Greek and fewer from English and French.

As Germany was divided into many different states in the 8^th century AD, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German for several hundred years was the general wish of writers to be understood by as many readers as possible.

The 2nd Orthographical Conference ended in 1901 with a complete standardisation of the German language in its written form and three years earlier the Deutsche Bühnensprache had established rules for German.

If we have a look in Europe, German is natively spoken in Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, but its use is shared with other different languages in Switzerland and Luxembourg. In the rest of the world, German is spoken by communities having the largest ones in The USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Australia and South Africa.

Facts:

• The first printed book in the world was in German. Johannes Gutenberg invented book printing and printed the first book in the world – a 42-page bible – in 1455.
• The oldest existing book written in the German language is probably Abrogans, an 8th century manuscript dictionary of translations from Latin into Old High German
• German belongs to the three most learned languages in the world and is the tenth most widely spoken language in the world and fifth on the Internet.
• German is among the top five most widely used languages on the Internet. German has 3 genders, ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’ and also ‘neuter’.

der – masculine
die – feminine
das – neuter

• The German language is exceptionally famous for forming long words. Some examples are:

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
A 63-letter long word meaning: Beef labeling regulation & delegation of supervision law.

Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft for Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services.

Some words which come from German and you may already know are:

• You perhaps went to a Kindergarten as a child.
• Zeitgeist, meaning ‘the spirit of the times’.

Here are some false friends:

• The German word Gift means poison.
• Mist is the translation of “bird droppings”.
• An advice in German is a Rat. The animal rat is written Ratte.
• Gymnasium in German is not a gymnasium in English. It actually means Grammar School.
• Sympathisch means nice in English and if you want to say sympathetic the correct word is mitfuehlend.

Here, at the University of Almería, you can find German courses in our “centro de lenguas”.

bis bald !

Languages of the World: 2.French

Today we are going to learn a little bit more about the French language.

French is a descendant of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, Sicilian and Sardinian. It is spoken officially in 29 countries by more than 115 million people and around 275 million speak it as a second language. It is an official language of United Nations, European Union and a large number of international organizations.

French speakers will number approximately 500 million people in 2025 and 650 million people, or approximately seven percent of the world’s population by 2050.

It is the second most common language in Canada, after English, and both are official languages at the federal level.

A majority of the world’s French-speaking population lives in Africa. It is estimated that 115 million African people spread across 31 Francophone African countries can speak French as either a first or a second language. The total French-speaking population is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050.

French was the most important language of diplomacy and international relations from the 17th century to approximately the middle of the 20th century. English has taken over that role since then.

Facts:

• The French counting system is partially vigesimal: twenty (vingt) is used as a base number in the names of numbers from 60 to 99. The French word for 80 is quatre-vingts, literally “four twenties”, and the word for 75 is soixante-quinze, literally “sixty-fifteen”

• French is second only to English for the number of countries where it has official status.

• The number of French speakers has tripled since 1945 largely because most of the former French and Belgian colonies kept French as their language of government, education and science after decolonization.

• The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie networks 630 French language universities and more than 350 French faculties worldwide, for a total of 120,000 professors and researchers.

• About a third to a half of basic English words come from French, including pedigree, surf, view, strive, challenge, pride, staunch and war.

• At the time of the French Revolution, 75% of French citizens did not speak French as a mother tongue. Until the 19th century, French was spoken more widely in Holland and Germany than in some parts of France.

• The letter ‘w’ appears only in foreign words within the French language.

• French spelling generally reflects the language as it was spoken four or five centuries ago and is therefore, a poor guide to modern pronunciation.

• French is the second most commonly-taught second language in the world (after English).

• One of the longest sentences in literature comes from Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”: 823 words without a period.

• If you learn French, you’ll have a head start in learning other languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Catalan

False friends (Faux amis) in French:

• Sensible means sensitive
• A deception is a disappointment
• Journal is a newspaper
• Actuellement: Sounds like ‘actually’… but it means ‘at the current time’. Actually would be ‘en fait’.
• Caution in French means a deposit, guarantee or bail, in financial terms.
• Forcément is equal to necessarily.
• Réalisation is to complete or accomplish something.
• La chair is the skin, not something where you can sit down.
• Le four is not a number, it refers to the oven.
• Laid is someone ugly.

Here, at the University of Almería, you can find French courses in our “centro de lenguas”.

Á bientôt !

Es tu Tiempo de Lenguas, aprovéchalo!

¿Quieres mejorar tu nivel de inglés? ¿O de francés? ¿O de alemán? Los idiomas se están convirtiendo en un requisito indispensable para acceder al mercado laboral actual. Sin ellos, tus oportunidades se verán reducidas. Así que, es hora de que dediques una parte de tu tiempo a aprender idiomas, un tiempo para aprender otras lenguas, un tiempo a: ¡TIEMPO DE LENGUAS!

Tiempo de Lenguas es una empresa del vivero que lleva 2 años en nuestras instalaciones de la Universidad de Almería. En el año 2010, María Cerdá presentó su proyecto ante el tribunal que otorgaba viveros a emprendedores y ganó uno de ellos; una academia de idiomas con clases distintas, clases a domicilio y online que favorecieran el aprendizaje de otras lenguas adaptándose a los horarios de cada alumno. Fue un proyecto que gustó mucho.

Tiempo de Lenguas ofrece una amplia gama de idiomas, entre los que destaca español para extranjeros e inglés, aunque también existe la posibilidad de solicitar clases de francés, alemán y ¡hasta chino! Ellos están especializados en la preparación de estudiantes para exámenes oficiales como los exámenes de inglés de Cambridge, entre otros.

Como todos sabemos, los horarios de hoy día están cada vez más aglomerados con actividades de todo tipo. Por eso, Tiempo de Lenguas, se adapta a ti, a tu horario, a tu lugar de trabajo, a tu casa: donde quieras, ¡cuando quieras!

¿Y qué más ofrecen?

• Clases a domicilio, in company,  online a través de una plataforma…
• Adaptación de horarios
• Inglés específico adaptado a tus necesidades
• Servicio personalizado
• Todo el material a tu disponibilidad
• Contratos mensuales sin matrícula inicial
• Clases individuales o en grupos muy reducidos (3/4 personas del mismo nivel)

¿Necesitas más razones para comenzar tu TIEMPO DE LENGUAS?

Puedes encontrarlos en la planta baja del CAE (conocido como CIDU), despacho 0.19 o en www.tiempodelenguas.es

¿Eres profesor titulado o estudiante Erasmus especializado en idiomas? ¿Quieres trabajar con ellos? Debido a la creciente demanda, Tiempo de Lenguas busca profesionales para impartir clases de inglés, principalmente nativos ingleses u otras nacionalidades que hablen bien inglés y español. ¡Aprovecha esta oportunidad!

Contacta con ellos en el 636007886 o en tiempodelenguas@hotmail.com

Learn foreign languages in the Language Centre at the University of Almería!

Are you looking for private language classes? At the University of Almería, everyone, both Students and Professors, have the possibility to learn a foreign language.

On the official homepage of El Centro de Lenguas (The Language Centre), all the necessary information can be found about the language courses,  different activities which they carry out: cultural and linguistic services, translation and interpretation, academic preparation and processing fees for official language certificates and accreditations.

The Language Centre at the University of Almería offers the chance to learn a language and prepare for official examinations of different institutions to prove your language skills. The official examinations: Cambridge, Institut Goethe Società Dante Alighieri (PLIDA) and the Instituto Cervantes official examination of Spanish as a Foreign Language.

They offer intensive courses, and one term or full academic year courses. You can choose among English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Arabic, Russian, Chinese or more than one language! They prepare for many different levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 y C2.

For teachers who would like to participate in the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan, it is essential to improve their language knowledge. So, where else could it be easier than at their home university?

The opportunities are here, you only have to take advantage of them!