Na'vi for beginners

Started by MIPP, September 12, 2010, 07:25:50 AM

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MIPP

Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 12:25:37 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 05:19:05 AM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 17, 2010, 12:41:09 PM
just saw this. its pretty good start. just one thing...

ay is NEVER [ej]. it is in English, but not Na'vi.

ay is [aj] and
ey is [ɛj]

I have just corrected it.
Oe irayo seiyi ngaru, ma Tirea Aean.

nìprrte'. :)

its like a NiaNtsyìp :3

Yes, it is. It works as a pre-NiaN.
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Tirea Aean

Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 02:10:37 PM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 12:25:37 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 05:19:05 AM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 17, 2010, 12:41:09 PM
just saw this. its pretty good start. just one thing...

ay is NEVER [ej]. it is in English, but not Na'vi.

ay is [aj] and
ey is [ɛj]

I have just corrected it.
Oe irayo seiyi ngaru, ma Tirea Aean.

nìprrte'. :)

its like a NiaNtsyìp :3

Yes, it is. It works as a pre-NiaN.

and even NiaN is a [annis reference grammar]tsyìp  HRH

MIPP

Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 02:13:12 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 02:10:37 PM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 12:25:37 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 05:19:05 AM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 17, 2010, 12:41:09 PM
just saw this. its pretty good start. just one thing...

ay is NEVER [ej]. it is in English, but not Na'vi.

ay is [aj] and
ey is [ɛj]

I have just corrected it.
Oe irayo seiyi ngaru, ma Tirea Aean.

nìprrte'. :)

its like a NiaNtsyìp :3

Yes, it is. It works as a pre-NiaN.

and even NiaN is a [annis reference grammar]tsyìp  HRH

And Horen LeNa'vi (Annis reference grammar) is a Paul Frommertsyìp  ;D (maybe not that funny)
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Tirea Aean

Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 02:57:28 PM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 02:13:12 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 02:10:37 PM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 18, 2010, 12:25:37 PM
Quote from: MIPP on December 18, 2010, 05:19:05 AM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on December 17, 2010, 12:41:09 PM
just saw this. its pretty good start. just one thing...

ay is NEVER [ej]. it is in English, but not Na'vi.

ay is [aj] and
ey is [ɛj]

I have just corrected it.
Oe irayo seiyi ngaru, ma Tirea Aean.

nìprrte'. :)

its like a NiaNtsyìp :3

Yes, it is. It works as a pre-NiaN.

and even NiaN is a [annis reference grammar]tsyìp  HRH

And Horen LeNa'vi (Annis reference grammar) is a Paul Frommertsyìp  ;D (maybe not that funny)

'Tis! HRH

Txur Redis

I have trouble saying nga, it does not sound right.  ??? I think I need some help.  :-\

'Oma Tirea

Quote from: Txur Redis on March 17, 2011, 03:54:26 PM
I have trouble saying nga, it does not sound right.  ??? I think I need some help.  :-\

Post it here.  You'll be far more likely to get help that way....

[img]http://swokaikran.skxawng.lu/sigbar/nwotd.php?p=2b[/img]

ÌTXTSTXRR!!

Srake serar le'Ìnglìsìa lì'fyayä aylì'ut?  Nari si älofoniru rutxe!!

Ayemo

Thanks alot for this dummies guide xD

i want to be fluent at na'vi and try and go to conventions where you only have to speak na'vi. Just like they do with Klingon, but I live in north Wales and conventions might be abit far from here :P
Makto ko!

MIPP

You are welcome, ma Ayemo.

I hope you get to speak Na'vi fluently!
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Ayemo

Thanks, are you fluent in Na'vi? and if so how long did it take to get fluent and what was your approach to this language?
Makto ko!

MIPP

I am not as fluent as Kemaweyan (pretty sure I wrote the name wrongly) but I think I am kind of fluent. I registered in April 2010 and I am studying ever since, although sometimes I make one or two months stops.
Na'vi for beginners | Dict-Na'vi.com

Hufwe lìng io pay, nìfnu slä nìlaw.
Loveless, Act IV.

Niri Te

My sweetie and I are just starting this. What we will do, is what we did when I was studying Koine Greek in College. Anyone could spot the Theology Students from fifty feet away, by the three inch thick stack of 3X5 cards all hooked to a huge circular ring hooked to their belts. What was on those "Flash Cards" was the last two weeks of Greek that they had to commit to memory.
Tee and I are going to make out the cards for ourselves, and quiz each other frequently. I HAVE to get rid of a BAD habit, every time that I see the letter "X" in Na'vi, I want to pronaunce it like we do the letter "Chi" in Greek. When I see the "Ts", I want to pronounce it as we do in Tsalagi, (Cherokee, of which I am half).
Brie
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tirea Aean

Oh that's cool! Lemme know how that works out. I'm not much of a flashcard guy because I never seem to be able to commit to using them O_O

EDIT: Also, iirc this thread was about a grammar guide for beginners, right?

Niri Te

I downloaded the Grammar cheat sheet, and the grammar notes, as well as the alphabet, and the dictionaries. I clicked on the "easiest way to learn Na'vi" workbook, but nothing came up, it there a new link? If we could get some kind of work book, we could REALLY learn fast. Irayo.
Brie
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tirea Aean


Tirea Aean

Since this document is still on the current active Projects list, I figured I'd add some comments here for consideration/correction. :)

0. Index
I suggest changing "3. Names" to "3. Nouns"

1. Alphabet


  • for the ew example, I suggest Beowulf (as posted by Plumps a few times)
  • The IPA for ll is syllabic [l] which is [l̩]

3. Names -- I suggest changing this to 3. Nouns


  • 3.2 Tip 1: Suggest changing "became (me)sute" to "becomes mesute"
  • 3.2 Tip 3: Suggest changing " is occurs lenition" to "and lenition occurs"
  • 3.2 Tip 3: "Tip 3:" is missing bold style

4. Pronouns


  • Suggest changing "What I means" to "what this means"
  • Suggest changing "Pronoun‟s plural
    is formed as the name‟s plural" to "A pronoun's plural is formed the same way as a noun's."
  • 1st inclusive Trial "(pxe+nga)" is same as 2nd person Trial. Suggest changing to "(pxe+oe+nga)"

5. Verbs


  • "In the pre-first, we
    put infixes like the reflexive, causative, active participle and passive participle infix. " --Active and passive participle infixes are not pre-first position, they are first. Suggest removing those from that section and adding them in the first section.
  • What about <iv> in the first position?
  • "The positions are: t<pre-first><first>ar<second>on. " I suggest it say this: "In the verb taron (hunt), the positions are: t<pre-first><first>ar<second>on"
  • 5.1 Infix positions: "To easily recognize the positions, I
    recommend the method that I use:[........]" -- Since that is actually quite complicated and doesn't always work (compound verbs, and ii irregular infix verbs), I suggest this: "To easily recognize the positions, I recommend looking for the raised dots in the Learn Na'vi dictionary entry, or searching the word on dict-navi.com and click the word for more details."
  • Just a little nit here: If you're gonna use grammatical terms in such a beginner's document, I suppose you might as well use the correct ones; <er> and <ol> are not tenses but aspects, and <er> is the imperfective aspect, not the progressive tense. (even if that's kind of what it translates to in English)
  • 5.2 Subjunctive:
    • "infixe" -> "infix"
    • As conditional and conjunctive have confusing meanings in and of themselves, I suggest clarifying that these are the conditional mood and the conjunctive mood. Because normally, a conditional is a if-then statement. and conjunctive verbs something else, I think.
    • "It is also used when you
      find two verbs, one close to the other, in the sentence. In that case, you put it in the
      second verb (e.g. I want to hunt Oe new tivaron)." -- This is very misleading. I'd specify that the first verb will be something like tsun, new, zene, zenke, fmi, kan, etc. Otherwise, the flexible word order does permit two verbs to be next to each other in the sentence and this would not apply, because the other verb is in a nested clause in the sentence. For ex: Oel tse'a taron a tuteti. --I see the person who hunts.
    • You should probably say what a modal verb is and give a few examples. (you use the term modal verb later on without having defined it
  • 5.3 Affect: "There are two" -- there are actually four. ei, äng, uy, and ats. uy is super rare and ceremonial and archaic or something, and ats means the speaker is uncertain about what they are saying.

6. Cases


  • You use a lot of spiffy terms here but never say what any of them mean. What do you mean by agentive subject, patientive direct object, and dative indirect object? What do intransitive and transitive mean? This is supposed to be a Beginners document, but not everyone knows this stuff already ;)
  • "Once more, there are exceptions when the word finishes in aw, ay, ew or ey" -- to that I'd add u and o. Words ending in u and o also take -ä instead of -yä.

6. Adjectives -- Shouldn't this be 7. Adjectives?

Super easy, super quick. Nicely done. I'll let the -a- exception on le adjectives slide, because it's not super essential.

7. Questions -- Should be 8. Questions.

8. Negative -- Should be 9. Negative (repeating 6 messed up the numbers)


  • HRH Such an epically short section! :D
  • I guess you left this out on purpose, for simplicity's sake?: When you use negative pronouns such as kawtu, ke'u, kawtseng, kekem (nobody, nothing, nowhere, no action), you still need to use ke in front of the verb.
  • Also, where is rä'ä, negating commands?

9. Word order -- Should be 10.


  • "Possessions words" I suggest change to either: Possessive adjectives, Genitive case nouns, or Possessors
  • Adverbs have no such restriction. Though the common tendency is to put them close to the verb.
  • rä'ä also goes right before the verb. (with optional emphasis exception, but you don't have to put that in here)
  • "modal verb" -- You haven't said what this is. But if you make the above corrections, you will :)
  • Final translation note: -- No mention of Horen lì'fyayä leNa'vi? It's as good as an option as any. Actually, I'd say the Pocket Guide should be forgotten by now. Very old, that one is. ;)

Hopefully this was helpful. :D

Tìtstewan

Quote from: Tirea Aean on August 17, 2014, 06:34:42 PM
Since this document is still on the current active Projects list, I figured I'd add some comments here for consideration/correction. :)
???
It's not in the project list, it's in the beginner material list plus on the download area of LN.

HOLY IKRAN, ma Tirea this is huge!

Some little additions:


Quote from: Tirea Aean on August 17, 2014, 06:34:42 PM
1. Alphabet


  • for the ew example, I suggest Beowulf (as posted by Plumps a few times)
  • The IPA for ll is syllabic [l] which is [l̩]
No. it's [] (unicode: 1E37) and rr is [] (unicode: 1E5B) [r and l with a dot below]

At 3.1, I would mention, that -e and -an are not productive.


Quote from: Tirea Aean on August 17, 2014, 06:34:42 PM
6. Cases


  • You use a lot of spiffy terms here but never say what any of them mean. What do you mean by agentive subject, patientive direct object, and dative indirect object? What do intransitive and transitive mean? This is supposed to be a Beginners document, but not everyone knows this stuff already ;)
  • "Once more, there are exceptions when the word finishes in aw, ay, ew or ey" -- to that I'd add u and o. Words ending in u and o also take -ä instead of -yä.
As for the exceptions on diphthongs, I just would use a simple table like this:

Yeah and not to mention that on some pronouns like nga, oeng, po, fko and tsa'u it becomes ngeyä, oengeyä, peyä, fkeyä, tsa'uä or tseyä, kefyak?


As for others, I'm completely agree with Tirea. :)

-| Na'vi Vocab + Audio | Na'viteri as one HTML file | FAQ | Useful Links for Beginners |-
-| Kem si fu kem rä'ä si, ke lu tìfmi. |-

Tirea Aean

Quote from: Tìtstewan on August 18, 2014, 12:24:50 AM
Quote from: Tirea Aean on August 17, 2014, 06:34:42 PM
Since this document is still on the current active Projects list, I figured I'd add some comments here for consideration/correction. :)
???
It's not in the project list, it's in the beginner material list plus on the download area of LN.

HOLY IKRAN, ma Tirea this is huge!

Some little additions:



As for others, I'm completely agree with Tirea. :)

^ This.

As for the unicode IPA characters for ll and rr, that must have been some kind of copypasta fail. I have made extra sure that those you just put here are the ones on the Learn Na'vi website Phonetics page.

I patiently await the update to this document. :) (I know, it may be a little while because we have pointed out a lot of stuff here that somehow got overlooked after all this time)