#learning bangla

(Part 1)

Note: I'm just an amateur language blogger. I have no experience whatsoever in actually teaching any language. I might not use the proper terms for all the parts of speech, particles, cases etc. But I do hope that these posts will help. Happy learning!

Prerequisites: Should know the Bengali script. That's all.

What's the word order in Bangla?

It's generally SOV (Subject-Object-Verb).

What is word order?

Well... Let's consider a sentence in English.

I eat an apple.

Here, I is the subject, eat is verb and apple is the object. Let's ignore 'an' for the time being.

Word order refers to the sequence of words in a sentence.

In English, the general word order is SVO.

Now let's see what it's Bengali equivalent will be.

আমি আপেল খাই।

āmi āpel khāi.

Here, আমি is the subject, আপেল is object and খাই is the verb.

So, unlike in English, object comes before the verb and the verb occurs at the end. It's like saying, "I apple eat", which may sound strange to you but that's how Bangla works.

But...

You can change the word order in Bangla, and it would still make sense!

আমি খাই আপেল, আপেল আমি খাই, খাই আপেল আমি and খাই আমি আপেল, all give off the same message that I eat the apple. Although, it'll sound weird to the average Bengali speaker. It'll be more clearer when we start conjugating the nouns and pronouns.

So what about the other parts of speech?

Adjectives, conjunctives, determiners etc., use them as you would in English. Prepositions are generally conjugated with the noun or pronoun. More on that later.

This is a red apple.

এটা একটা লাল আপেল।

Also, we omit the to be verb আছে sometimes in the sentences.

You are tall.

তুমি লম্বা।

Tumi lômbā.

Translation: you tall (are).

That's it for this post.

Test yourself

Here're some sentences in English. Test yourself on what you just learned and form the sentences in Bangla.

I saw her, I am standing, It is here, You are short, Your bag is heavy.

(আমি=I, ওটা=it, দেখেছিলাম=saw, ভারী=heavy, এখানে=here, তুমি=you, তাকে=her, আছি=am, বেঁটে=short, ব্যাগ=bag, তোমার=your)

English: start, beginning

Etymology: Borrowed from Persian شُرُوع‎ (šoru'), from Arabic شُرُوع‎ (šurūʿ). Compare Hindustani شُرُوع‎ / शुरू (śurū), Punjabi ਸ਼ੁਰੂ (śurū) / شُرُوع‎ (śurū), Gujarati શરૂ (śarū), Marathi सुरू (surū), Kannada ಶುರು (śuru).

Source: wiktionary.org

Sentence/phrase:

আমি একটা নতুন উপন্যাস পড়া শুরু করলাম।

āmi ækṭā notun uponnās pôṛā śuru korlām.

(aa-mi aek-Ta no-tun u-pon-naas paw-Ra shu-ru kor-laam)

Translation:

I started reading a new novel.

Breaking the sentence:

আমি - I

একটা - one, a

নতুন - new

উপন্যাস - novel

পড়া - to read

শুরু - start

I’ve been really struggling with my bangla lessons for the the past few weeks.

It seems that everything I learn is useless and every time someone makes an effort to try and explain something that I probably should know, I still don’t get it!

It was frustrating for both me and my tutor. For me I felt I wasn’t being taught useable phrases and for her because if I did remember anything it was the wrong pronunciation and very often the entirely wrong word. This was because I would be writing as she sped through the bangla and it’s difficult to remember a word in a different language that you have no former association with, nevermind a full phrase! It’s annoying because I’m less enthusiastic about talking and interacting with the women because I don’t have anything to say and I can’t ask the questions I want to ask but even worse is when they talk to me and I just look back at them like, well…like the wheel is turning but the hamsters dead.

This inevitably stops me sitting with the women as much as I should and I did have to force myself to go out and try a few phrases and ask if I can help with some little jobs. I stopped helping with little jobs for a while when the interns were here because they would do that.

It wasn’t until I had a chat with one of the expats about how difficult it was to communicate and learn the language that I began to feel better about it.

She had said that she found it just as hard in the beginning but that the ladies don’t need me to be fluent in bangla to know that I care about them and that they are special. And that by spending time with them I’m showing them that they aren’t worthless which is an unfortunate effect of working in the sex trade.

Even now that they’re out of it, their self worth doesn’t just reappear again. Instead it may take years and years for them to see themselves as important.

I’ve felt really grateful that they frequently stop what they’re doing and and tell me their favourite colour but I always felt a little bad that I was distracting them and I’m usualy unable to keep the conversation going after that but now I see that friendly smile can sometimes go a lot further.

And oddly enough todays bangla lesson was enjoyable! I was asked to put together some phrases which at first seemed Impossible since I haven’t learnt many bridging words, mostly just nouns. But I managed it and promised to learn some more phrases for next time.

I will have to find out whether elephants really do like sweet yoghurt before I use that phrase and potentially lie to the ladies but now I know I can just sit with them if that phrase isn’t the shundor choti! (Beautiful truth… I’m trying!)