Na'vi language lesson podcast

[omängum fra'uti]

I have started a little project of giving Na'vi lessons in spoken form.  Hopefully this will help people with pronunciation as well as learning the language.  My goal is to keep the linguistic terms down as much as possible.  When I do give a linguistic term, it's always with an accompanying explanation of what it is, so you don't need to look it up, and can ignore the names if you're so inclined.

In coming lessons I would like to add a small Q&A session, so if you have any questions, feel free to post them here.

Dowload Lesson 1 (Take 2) - Basic sentences

Spoiler: Lesson 1 vocabulary and sentences

Noun
oe	I, me
nga	You
po	He, she
txep	Fire
kxener	Smoke
'eylan	Friend
Verb
tse'a	See (Physical sense)
ngop	Create
lu	Be
zene	Must
Adverb
tafral	Therefore, because of that
Adjective
tsawl	Large (In stature)
Sentences
Oel kxenerit tse'a	I see smoke
Oel tse'a kxenerit	I see smoke
Oel ngat tse'a	I see you (Physically)
Txepìl kxenerit ngop	Fire creates smoke
Oel kxenerit tse'a tafral txep zene livu	I see fire therefore there must be smoke
Oe 'eylan lu	I am a friend
Oe eylan lu	(Just an example of the glottal stop sound difference, but translates to the ill formed "I am friends")
Po lu tsawl	He is large

Dowload Lesson 2 (Take 2) - Plurals

Spoiler: Lesson 2 vocabulary and sentences

Prefix
ay	Plural
me	Dual
pxe	Trial
Noun
hì'ang	Insect
ayhì'ang	Insects
nari	Eye
menari	(Two) eyes
swizaw	Arrow
pxeswizaw	(Three) arrow
(ay)eylan	Friends
kinam	Leg
(ay)hinam	Legs
mehinam	(Two) legs
kxetse	Tail
(ay)ketse	Tails
pam	Sound
(ay)fam	Sounds
pxun	Arm
(ay)pun	Arms
mepun	(Two) arms
taronyu	Hunter
(ay)saronyu	Hunters
(ay)tep	Fires
pxetep	(Three) fires
ayoe	Us (Not you)
aynga	You (Plural)
(ay)fo	They (Plural)
moe	Us (Two, not you)
mefo	They (Two)
menga	You (Two)
oeng	Us (You and me)
ayoeng	Us (All of us)
awnga	Us (All of us)
pxoe	Us (Three, not you)
pxoeng	Us (You, me, and someone else)
pxenga	You (Three)
pxefo	They (Three)
Verb
munge	Take, bring
tìran	Walk
stawm	Hear
za'u	Come
'eko	Attack
Adjective
ean	Blue
txur	Strong
Adposition
fa	With (By means of)
hu	With (Accompanying)
Sentences
Oel ayhì'angit tse'a	I see insects
Oe tse'a menarifa	I see with two eyes
Oe tse'a fa menari	I see with two eyes
Oel pxeswizawit munge	I bring (three) arrows
Oel ayeylanit munge	I bring friends
Oel eylanit munge	I bring friends
Oe tìran fa mehinam	I walk with (two) legs
Ayketse lu ean	Tails are blue
Ketse lu ean	Tails are blue
Oel ayfamit stawm	I hear sounds
Oel stawm famit	I hear sounds
Mepun lu txur	(Two) arms are strong
Aysaronyu za'u	Hunters come
Saronyu za'u	Hunters come
Pxetepit oel ngop	Three fires are created by me
Ayoe saronyu lu	We are hunters
Aynga hu eylan za'u	You (many) come with friends[/i]
Fo lu eylan	They are friends
Ayfo lu ayeylan	They are friends
Oeng lu meylan	We (you and I) are friends
Ayoengìl fot 'eko	We attack them
Awngal fot 'eko	We attack them

Dowload Lesson 3 - Basic Noun Cases

Dowload Lesson 4 - Dative Case and Conversational Phrases

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Thanks to some tips from Kaltxì Palulukan, you can now subscribe with iTunes or your favorite feed reader!
http://navilessons.podomatic.com/
However the subscribe to iTunes link is broken at the moment, so instead use this one for now.

[eanayo]

Ma omängum fra'uti,

Great idea to make this! If you can continue this work, it will be tremendously useful.

A couple of comments:
I really liked that you introduced the subtle differences of word order, along with "equivalent" translations, and illustrated that by shuffling around words in the sentences.
Another thing I personally appreciate is your 'eylan/eylan example to show the glottal stop at the beginning of the word. It would be great if you could continue to explain such nuances in pronunciation (e'/e, i-ì-i, ä-a-e, unreleased consonants etc) in coming episodes.
The lu explanation and the warning of auxiliary verbs in English is also very useful, especially for beginners with no second langauge background (and/or ayskxawng like myself )
However, I would really ask to increase the bit rate of the MP3. The way it is now, compression artifacts are a bit disturbing, and the limited bandwidth makes hearing subtleties a bit difficult (unless you were actually talking through a pillow )

I'm looking forward to your next episode (hopefully soon)!

[omängum fra'uti]

It wasn't the bitrate that was causing the pillow talk, it was the sample rate.  I bumped it up to the normal 44100 and roughly doubled the bitrate to compensate.  Now it's closer to 5mb, but it sounds fairly clear.  Re-download it if the quality is bothering you.  Next time I'll also try to keep my cell phone away from the microphone.

[okrìsti]

nìltsan tsakem soli ulte fpìl oel futa ngeyä lì'u san 'eylan sìk lu sìltsan
oe tsun stivam tìketengit tsaylì'uä =)

[omängum fra'uti]

New lesson up on plurals.  And the quality is MUCH better in this one.  I found the best combination of microphone, sound hardware & computer to get the least amount of hiss, and was able to run that through a filter without heavily effecting the quality of the rest of the sound.

Without having to coordinate people or deal with complex editing (Just cutting out extra pauses and repetitions) I can bang these out pretty quick.  It's just a matter of having material.

[Niwantaw]

you are a lifesaver
+ KARMA

[Ftiafpi]

Yay! Stuff to listen to at work.

[DJ Makto]

Brilliant! Actually words cannot describe how excellent this is. Na'vi or English. 

Was hoping something like this would turn up.

One word.

FANTASTIC. 

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

Okay, it's official.

I told everyone on FB and Twitter (a few hundred, and a few thousand respectively) to subscribe, download, and listen to the world's first Na'vi lesson podcast series. I also subscribed, followed, and downloaded both lessons. I will make sure we showcase this in the podcast, and I will keep hitting up our friends on FB and Twitter to download and subscribe to your lessons.

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Just one issue with this:

It's taronyu, (ay)saronyu, not taronyu.

And I'm not absolutely certain but it sounds like you might be saying your name "fra'uti" when the stress I'm pretty sure should be "fra'uti"
Again, I'm not certain on that, but that's the way it sounded to me.

Just being a little bit nitpicky because I know you'd do the same for me

Other than that - I love it, and I very much love your accurate pronunciations... rare to find indeed

[omängum fra'uti]

You are correct on my name, I believe I corrected it in the second one.  On taronyu, apparently I never learned the correct stress on that one as I had thought it was taronyu, but you are correct it should be on the first syllable.

At this point, I think I'm going to re-record both lessons with a few fixes such as that and feedback from someone who certainly knows a bit about Na'vi, and following roughly a transcription of what I have now, so hopefully I'll have less "Um, er, ya know" in there waiting for my mind to catch up with what I'm saying.

Other changes off the top of my head...

In a few cases I stress Na'vi on the final syllable rather than properly on the first.  I know I have a habit of doing this esp. when I say nìNa'vi at the end of a sentence.

A mistake I used to make back in January and February which I thought I was done with came back to haunt me, and I translated "Aynga" as "I" in both the text and the spoken part.

Finally, Frommer wasn't entirely happy with me explaining word order in terms of the passive voice in English.  While it can be the case, he gave an example that "You are seen by me", while grammatically fine, is odd sounding and not something that would really be used in a normal conversation, whereas "Ngati oel tse'a" and all other 5 orderings of those words are all equally natural in Na'vi.  So I'm going to take his advice and for now just explain that all the different orders mean "I see (Physically) you", but then stick to basic SOV or SVO for beginner lessons.  (And that the actual situations when you'd use each of the different orders aren't clearly defined yet.)

[Alìm Tsamsiyu]

Oh yes, you saying Aynga reminds me... at the end of the first lesson, it sounds like you say "Kiyevame ulte Eywa ngahu" rather than "...Eywa ayngahu"

I know the difference would be subtle with the sounds merging, but I listened to it a few times and it sounded more like "Eywangahu" than "Eywayngahu."

[omängum fra'uti]

Re-recorded the first lesson.  It should be easier to follow, as I had a script to read from this time rather than just notes.

[Kaltxì Palulukan!]

Re-recorded the first lesson.  It should be easier to follow, as I had a script to read from this time rather than just notes.

Yaay. I look forward to downloading it. PodOmatic sent me an email that you had a new lesson. Once you are in iTunes it will autodownload for me. As to a script, if you can get yourself to sound comfortable reading from a (tight or loose) script, you will be surprised how professional you sound, and how much flexibility you have. It makes editing infinitely easier.

Also: I will be the one listener who will never castigate you for mispronunciations. 

[omängum fra'uti]

For learning material I'd actually like to know everything I got wrong.  I don't want to teach wrong information.

[Pxia Säsngap]

Kaltxì

I've listened to your podcast lesson 1. First thing I'd like to say is that I like it very much. It's great to hear how the words and complete sentences are pronounced and what difference there is between 'eylan and eylan (like the other member said in the last comment). Thank you for your work and for your trouble. It is very helpful when someone is learning Na'vi- like me: I've started learning on monday and had problems with the pronounciation. But now I know everything I didn't understand before by just reading Na'vi. Oe irayo seiyi ngaru.

But there is one thing I have to complain about. You introduced the word tse'a and the words oe and nga. And then you made a sentence with these words: oe nga tse'a. But for what I know it would have to be oel ngat(i) tse'a. This is because of the ergative and accusative forms of oe and nga, that appear when there is an object(in this case a direct object-->accusative). Maybe I'm wrong, as I learn Na'vi since only 4 days, but this is told in the Na'vi in a nutshell guide to be the right sentence with the right cases. Please inform me if I'm wrong with that. And if I'm not, please change it in your podcast. It is much too helpful and well-meant to content such a mistake. It'd be sad if people use your great idea to make a podcast and learn it wrong.


Eywa ngahu
Stachel

[omängum fra'uti]

I do actually say "Oel ngat tse'a", though its a bit fast.  The t and ts between ngat and tse'a merge into a single sound.  With "oel" you can tell the difference because when it is on its own, it is pronounced as two syllables (Oh-eh) but when used with a case it becomes one (More like "well").  However I am not going to really mention noun cases until I get to a point to introduce them, which will either be lesson 3 or 4.  Maybe I'll go ahead and make that lesson 3 and stick with simple verb forms until lesson 4.

[omängum fra'uti]

Lesson 2 re-recorded and remastered, now available for your downloading pleasure!

Now I can get back to making new lessons.  By popular request, a small side trip into pronunciation next.  We'll see how short I can keep THAT one...

[tsrräfkxätu]

Ma omängum fra'uti a tolìng karmat oel!

This is pure awesomeness! Finally something to listen to in Na'vi! Your pronunciation very very good, way better than anyone else's I've heard. I'd be surprised if you didn't get a part in Avatar 2!

Also, good job on avoiding lingo terms and with the explanations (though I personally wouldn't have introduced ‹iv› in the first lesson, but that's no biggie.)


Now the pronunciation stick:

• Kaltxì is stressed on the second syllable, which is not how you pronounce it in the intro, and as a result the [ɪ] at the end disappears.
  
• Watch your [ɛ] sounds. Inside words, you get  them spot on, but on the borders they turn into an English "ay."
  
• Your [u]'s and [o]'s are very good, if you make them a bit shorter they'll be perfect. ("A very important word in any language is 'loo.'" Indeed! )
  
• You word-final [l] is sometimes too dark. Lighten up a little!
  
  Also, I prefer your (naturally) fast tempo, but it might be a little too rapid for newbies.
  
  Anyway, all these are minor stuff.
  
  Keep up! Can't wait for lesson #3!

[Kekerusey]

Good job! Bring on #3

Keke