Hi Aran,
I would like to have a go at the Russian and Ukrainian courses. But can’t see them on the app. Do I need to download a new version?
Diolch,
Kev B
I’m gradually checking through our initial attempt at Basque through English at the moment, then I’ll have a look at the Basque through Spanish which has been created but will need to be adapted after the ‘through English’ version has been thoroughly checked. Then a Basque through French course will be quicker to produce.
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Are you using saysomethingin.app?
Yes
I’ll have a look at your permissions
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We’ve got some work going on with Breton and some possible support from the Breton government to get the voices done, so that should be a thing before the end of the year, fingers crossed.. 
Meanwhile Russian and Afrikaans are up there - we haven’t automatically generated a flag icon for Afrikaans, seems a bit unclear what the right way forward is there - of course flags are often not the right thing for languages, but it’s easy for us to go with logos instead, where flags aren’t a good match - any ideas for a logo for Afrikaans?
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Is this because of the number of national languages (of which there are 12 when included sign language)? The South African flag covers all of those languages and is legitimate for all of them - so you can use it for Afrikaans quite legitimately. However, if you do this it would mean using an SA flag several times over if you get to Zulu, Xhosa, Swati etc.
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I’d say “don’t encourage them” when it comes to taking payments on native apps !
Both Apple & Google are SO greedy!
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Strongly agreed on native app payments!
Oh, okay, that’s a thought - we could just go RSA flag, fair call.
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Maltese is on the list?! A Maltese course would be amazing!
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Maltese seems to have the necessary LLMs! So I’ve just pulled the trigger on the first stage of the build
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I’ve been looking for a good resource to learn Slovenian!
My partner is from there and being a small country, it’s pretty much never covered by the big language apps.
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I’m a bit nervous to fire up Slovenian, because I know @tatjana will be horrified by the bits that don’t work! But okay, putting it on the list
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I have some interest in exploring Cantonese (with traditional characters). Also, a friend with connections in Bangladesh who would like to learn Bangla.
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We’ve got some ideas about how to help with different scripts, but they’re not ready yet.
To my surprise, I’m not seeing either Cantonese or Bangla in the tools we’re using - we’ll have a scout around and see if there’s anything else we can figure out.
Persian please!
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Already there!
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Well, it might be I won’t be as horrified as you’re nervous about, but be careful with accents. Many words are similar to Serbian or Croatian but stress on them is different and it simply wouldn’t sound right.
On the other hand: I have to hear things first and then I could comment (or I’ll simply be quiet, who knows).
I like Serbian so far, for example, in particular that “želim”.
@kyron you’re right. Not many “big apps” cover our language although the things are slowly getting better. I was a member of one group of Slovene learners on Facebook and I was hugely surprised by how many people are learning Slovene. Some because they have to due to work here, others just fell in love with the language.
The only problem in Slovene is duality which is also different for masculine and feminine but if this issue was solved in Polish course (they have duality as well if I knoe correctly) then it surely can be properly addressed in Slovene as well.
“želim govoriti slovensko.”
“Učim se govoriti slovensko.” etc, etc …
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We’re trying to make sure that the Popty is ready for volunteers to help fix issues - it’s a fairly complicated beast, so we still want to do quite a bit of simplification, and it’s about finding the time to do that… but hopefully the first draft will be useful enough to help people even while we’re working on the fine tuning
How mutually comprehensible are the Slavic languages, Tatjana? That:
“želim govoriti slovensko.”
“Učim se govoriti slovensko.”
looks super familiar now!
Well, it could look super familiar also because, you know, we’ve done Bedtime languages, Slovenian included. However, yes, I can fairly speak for Slovenian, Serbian and Croatian, that they are quite mutually comprehensible. Many times if you understand something in Croatian or Serbian for that matter, you can understand in Slovenian as well. A lot of times only the stress on the word is different and means approximately the same if not the same thing. However, there are also (as in all languages) false friends. Here’s a very good example of the word “vreme”. In Slovenian it means weather. “Kakšno je vreme?” - How’s the weather? In Croatian and Serbian, “vrijeme” or “vreme” means time. “Koliko vremena treba da stignem tamo?” - how much time I need to arrive there?
Other languages than that, you could understand some, especially maybe in Slovak and Czech, but not as much as Slovene Vs Croatian or, let’s say Serbo-Croatian. Serbian and Croatian are now somehow separated languages and some new words were inplemented, like in Croatian “glasovir” instead of “klavir” which means a piano, “zrakomlat” instead of “helikopter” which means (clear enough) helicopter and some more which, to be honest even I am not quite familiar with these days though. Macedonian, if you speak one of those languages (Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian) you could understand pretty well too. Russian I could understand more from the context than really know the words (if even I took a go on it once, too).
Duality, though, is specialty of Slovene and (I think) Polish language more or less only. That said, it has to be properly used regarding gender as well. “Včeraj sva šli na večerjo.” - We (us two) went to dinner yesterday.) - feminine, but “Včeraj sva šla na večerjo.” - We went (us two) to dinner.) - masculine or mixed. There’s anomaly in colloquial Slovene speach though. Nowdays many (especially young) people don’t or can’t use feminine duality properly so you’d often hear “Včeraj sva šle na večerjo” for feminine, what is actually wrong.
All in all, yes, if you can speak one of - let’s say - Ex Yugoslavian - languages, you can be pretty well understood. Of course in all languages the grammar and word order is a bit different which makes all of those something special.
Oh, and something more: I’ve listened to some Croatian today again and noticed that feminine is not used (I think in Italian you changed that if I’m correctly informed). All three Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian use genders so it might be super useful if female voice would actually speak her gender, where that applies, from the very beginning so that learner could get used to this difference. It sounds a bit strange if you would talk like a woman, but you’re actually a man, and vice versa, of course.
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