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General discussion

Call from Serbia, 2/16

Feb 16, 2006 2:29PM PST

I just finished listening to today's podcast, and was very surprised to hear Dean calling from Serbia, because I am myself from Belgrade, Serbia. I am also wondering how many other Buzz Out Loud listeners are from there...

Also wanted to help Tom and Veronica learn how to say "Thank you" in Serbian, since I got the impression that Tom prides himself on knowing how to pronounce foreign and hard to pronounce words. So here it goes.

The spelling of the word is "Hvala". It is pronounced like HVA - LAH. There are no silent letters so the H is pronounced like the H in House. The second part of the word is pronounced like LA in LAva.

I hope it makes sense!

Discussion is locked

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Cool
Feb 16, 2006 2:35PM PST

That is really cool. Thanks for sharing with us.

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Hvala!
Feb 16, 2006 2:54PM PST

I'll give it a shot. I've got some experience pronouncing Russian words that cram consonants together, but an H before a V is no easy trick.

Thanks for listening!

Gracias
Merci
Grazie
Salamat
Spasiba
Ahsante
Dyakuyu
Arigato
Danka
Go raibh maith agat

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Similar to Russian
Feb 17, 2006 3:23AM PST

Serbian is pretty similar to Russian. The consonants stuck together is a problem for English speaking people. On the other hand you have a rule that no letters are silent and each letter is always pronaunced the same no matter its context. Unlike in English : Knife vs Keen. Happy

Why don't you let us know what languages those "Thank you's" are in, especially the last one-- four words for Thanks, geesh!

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ummmmmmmm
Feb 17, 2006 3:31AM PST

Gracias, spanish
Merci, french
Grazie, italian
Salamat, semi arabic? (shukran is thank you)
Spasiba, mrussian
Ahsante
Dyakuyu
Arigato, japanese
Danka, german
Go raibh maith agat, gaelic?

and todah rabah, hebrew


.

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Good job - here are the rest
Feb 17, 2006 5:37AM PST

Salamat - tagalog (one of the language of the Phillipines)
Ahsante - Swahili
Dyakuyu - Poorly transliterated Ukrainian
Go raibh maith agat - Irish (Gaelic)

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(NT) (NT) I'm so learning the Gaelic one!
Feb 17, 2006 8:54AM PST
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(NT) (NT) gonna be saying that all day!
Feb 16, 2006 4:06PM PST
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Another easy way to say it...
Feb 17, 2006 3:26AM PST

Like in any language Serbs like to shorten their pronaunciations and so Hvala sometimes turns into Fala -- much easier to say!