Dothraki memrise courses

[Ifak]

no, no. Ohazholat is "to become heavy", ohazat should be "to be heavy".

So let me get this straight...
Ohazh - heavy (adjective)
Ohazhat - to become heavy (intransitive verb)
Ohazholat - to become heavy (transitive verb)
Ohazat - to be heavy (but we don't know yet)
Did I get that right?

Transitivity tells you if the verb takes an object. It's kinda short extra hint on what a verb means. If the verb is intransitive, it does not take (straight) object, so if you have eg. intransitive to burn (virsalat), you'll know that "the house burned" ("okre virsa") is good use and "I burned the house" (*"anha virsa okre") won't work. Useful, eh.

So if I understand this correctly, because virsalat (to burn) is intransitive, we know it can mean "to be on fire" but not "to burn something"?
What about Ohazhat - to become heavy (intransitive) and Ohazholat - to become heavy (transitive)? Does this mean you could say "Chiori ohazh(e)" The woman became heavy? But how would you even use the verb in a transitive sense? I made something (become) heavy? I don't know

Some words, like fittelat may be wrong (could be fittat), but it's too frustrating to refrain from saying things like "I am short" just because we're not entirely sure about the whole scheme of fittat.
Yes. This is exactly what I had in mind with this course, while making it. Even though we may not know if a lot of these words even exist, the goal is to be able to speak the language. So I think we need to compensate, and if we see that we've made incorrect assumptions we should fix them as new data comes along. That's my take on it at least.

[Qvaak]

So let me get this straight...
Ohazh - heavy (adjective)
Ohazhat - to become heavy (intransitive verb)
Ohazholat - to become heavy (transitive verb)
Ohazat - to be heavy (but we don't know yet)
Did I get that right?

fukken shite, no. The lack of h is simply a typo. Even if I spend a lot of time correcting others' mistakes, I'm more than capable making my own - read critically, please. Both ohazhat (to be heavy) and ohazholat (to become heavy) are intransitive, I'm quite sure. Where did you get the idea ohazholat should be transitive? On our vocab page vtr. means transitive, vin. means intransitive and v. means that we do not take any stand on transitivity, which is silly on this case, I'll give you that. It's silly not to mark ohazholat as intransitive, 'cause it being transitive would be strange, but people who add words are not always willing to make educated guesses. Saying just v. can't go wrong even if it's less informative.

Yes. This is exactly what I had in mind with this course, while making it. Even though we may not know if a lot of these words even exist, the goal is to be able to speak the language. So I think we need to compensate, and if we see that we've made incorrect assumptions we should fix them as new data comes along. That's my take on it at least.

And I agree, at least to some extent. It's good to learn relatively early, where we are on sure footing, and what's iffy, but right in the beginning it does not matter so much.

simonof - grandfather (animate)
kristasof - grandmother (inanimate)

This, by the way is so strange I suspect there's an error. It's likely both animacies have been deduced by us, very likely that at least one has. Words for human beings are almost always animate (and they are pretty much the only words where you can tell with any confidence from what they denote to that they are animate - animals, body parts etc. go which way ever; uncountables on the other hand seem to be inanimate wihout a fail), though I think ohara really is inanimate, because I see no reasonable way to mistake that. So it generally it should be a reasonably surefooted guess that words for grandfather and grandmother are animate. But usually derivational animacy assignment seems to trump, and all /-of/ words should be inanimate. I think we'll ask mr. Peterson about that.

[Ifak]

fukken shite, no.

I'm getting my info from the dictionary. Ver 3.083 is the latest version right?



According to the dictionary both ohazhat and ohazholat mean to become heavy and ohazhat is marked as intransitive. Ohazholat on the other hand is not transitive, my bad.

The grandma and grandpa animacy also comes from the dictionary.

[Ifak]

On a side note, I tested what happens when you change words in the memrise course and found out that memrise doesn't warn the users that there have been changes made or anything. But thankfully each course has it's own forum, so I will be able to warn users about the changes in the words that they might already have learned. Also, do we have any kind of collection of spoken word audio? Would be great for the course.

[Hrakkar]

On a side note, I tested what happens when you change words in the memrise course and found out that memrise doesn't warn the users that there have been changes made or anything. But thankfully each course has it's own forum, so I will be able to warn users about the changes in the words that they might already have learned. Also, do we have any kind of collection of spoken word audio? Would be great for the course.

Very good. Luckily, things don't change much here. 3.083 is indeed the current version of the dictionary, but there are about half a dozen words, etc. waiting to be added (They are keeping me so busy at work and with Na'vi that I have been a little slow in updating). As for spoken examples, look at David Peterson's blog at Dothraki.com He has lots of spoken examples there, and I would use his examples above anything else. When he speaks Dothraki, his voice is totally different than when he speaks English.

[Qvaak]

Yah. I recommend using the wiki's vocab page (http://wiki.dothraki.org/Vocabulary), if you are conveniently connected to interwebs. It's kinda sorta less official, but easier to update, so it's ever so slightly more up to date. And it's a bit more versatile too, so there's some extra info like some quotes (needs more) and past singulars on verbs and accusatives on nouns to help pintpoint irregularities. And you can edit it, so when errors or shortcomings are found, you can correct them. And we can undo your edits, so if you make errors, we'll catch them and edit the wiki back to how it was. In the case of ohazhat, though, the error seems to be in the transition from wiki vocab to pdf dictionary. And the simonof/kristasof strangeness won't be resolved without asking DJP.

By the way, have you checked the word group page

http://wiki.dothraki.org/Dothraki_Word_Groups

Daenerys maintains?

[Ifak]

I didn't know about the word group page, it seems to be a bit outdated though. Anyway, I received permission from mr. Peterson to use his audio for pronunciation examples. Today I'll try to stuff all the words into the Memrise course and scavenge through some audio. Is one of you guys going to help me with a list of pronouns? I'm sure anna and anha could be in there. Maybe all the pronouns for the present tense conjugation table?

[Qvaak]

I didn't know about the word group page, it seems to be a bit outdated though.

More a work in progress, I think. The latest update is from this year: vik was added.

Today I'll try to stuff all the words into the Memrise course and scavenge through some audio

Are you planning on extracting words? ... Are you planning on putting them up on the wiki?

Is one of you guys going to help me with a list of pronouns? I'm sure anna and anha could be in there. Maybe all the pronouns for the present tense conjugation table?

Pronouns work as irregular nouns (as they usually do), so no present tense conjugation (that would be verb stuff), just the five cases and plurals. You have checked http://wiki.dothraki.org/Pronouns? Person pronoun list gives the full 35 (28 unique) scheme, but if you want to start with fewer, shafka is easy to leave for later, ablative and allative are less fundamental than nominative, accusative and genitive, so they can be skipped too if need be, and plurals are little less useful too.

[Ifak]

Are you planning on extracting words? ... Are you planning on putting them up on the wiki?

I'm extracting words from Mr. Petersons audio files as we speak. Wasn't planing to put them on the wiki. Do you want me to? I can give you the whole package when I'm done. I'll have a look at the pronouns later, today I really dug deep into this audio stuff, so I want to finish this first.
Also I kinda forgot about a whole bunch of useful words that I think I should add like conjunctions, determiners and maybe some prepositions.

I added was going to add the word chek (good) to the everyday words level, after I have seen it being used on Petersons blog, but now I double checked the meaning on the wiki and see that it says "well". But that can also be good right? For instance if my Dothraki wife says she made some pancakes for breakfast, my reply would be chek as in "good". Is that correct? And if it is, can I put it into the course as such (chek - good, well)?

EDIT: Silly me, as I was writing the above, I forgot where I saw the word chek but as I went back I saw that it was a direct translation from Mr. Peterson: Chek! - Good! But I'm still not sure if that exclamation point changes anything.

[Ifak]

I think the course has evolved enough of an outline for me to be able to post the link here if you want to check it out. This is a work in progress and it's not yet available to find by searching on Memrise and it shouldn't be used for learning just yet. Take a look: http://www.memrise.com/course/219796/dothraki-for-beginners/

[Hrakkar]

VEry good! When you think this is ready, you can start a thread for it that can be stickied.

[Ifak]

Allright here's the latest update. I contacted Sunquan8094 on the forums, via email and via youtube and asked permission to link to his videos and to use his audio in the course.

I've made the post where I put all the words (on page 1 of this thread) my main list. I added an update log to the post.

Qvaak this is where I will need your help in order to finish this. Memrise has an option to add multimedia levels in between the other levels. I decided to use this in order to explain things with text. For instance, the first level is just a text explaining in more detail what the course is about and that users should also be learning grammar along side it. Following is the first level - Everyday words. After that is another text level that explains what noun animacy is. Then the users learn some nouns, and some adjectives. And after the adjectives there is a level with verbs that come from the previously learned adjectives. Before this I need to put in another text level with an explanation why adjectives can be used as verbs. I cannot for the life of me put this together as I have no real idea how this is used and what the actual rules are. I really need someone to put this together. It needs to look like a short text explaining that this exists and then an example that shows how it works.
Pretty please with sugar on top!

EDIT:
Wait... I might have just figured it out
so.. if you have the adjective davra - useful and the noun jolino - cooking pot., you could say:
Useful cooking pot: Jolino davra. And we used the adjective from of davra.
The cooking pot is useful: Jolino davrae. And we used the verb davralat.

Is that correct?

[Qvaak]

I think your idea of how to use chek is right. You can use it as a response "good", and probably not just in adverbial sense ("How are you doing?" "Good.") but most likely also in interjection way ("I made pancakes." "Good."). I'm not absolutely sure about that latter though, because you can respond to "I made pancakes." with "Athdavrazar," and basically chek should be strictly adverbial. English isn't typically very restricting about these things, but to make the difference clearer, you might compare chek to "nicely". So if "chek!" works for pancakes, it's probably more a contraction from something in the vain of "Nicely done!" or "Things are going nicely!" than from adjective or noun sense of "good".

EDIT:
Wait... I might have just figured it out
so.. if you have the adjective davra - useful and the noun jolino - cooking pot., you could say:
Useful cooking pot: Jolino davra. And we used the adjective from of davra.
The cooking pot is useful: Jolino davrae. And we used the verb davralat.

Is that correct?

Yep. Looks right to me. Can you manage now or do you still need me to write some kind of explanation for something, 'cause I'm not sure if I understand too clearly what kind of explanation you need? I can fix up something, but there's a good chance that it won't be exactly what you are looking for. Basically all I understand with any clarity is explained under wiki's learning pages. We know a lot more in scraps, but I've found it hard to update the wiki in any coherent way further than it is now. Some day soonish I gotta get back to updating and sqeeze some more sense from all half-knows, but that ain't easy (and I like to repeat: you can help. I'm just a student too, even if a bit more advanced than most. The wiki is not my project, it's a project I participate alongside with other people and more the merrier).

I'm checking through the course. Love the audio. You bring so much extra value with that. Only complaint so far is that "chek!" should not have the exclamation mark. The other interjections like m'ath have as much reason to come with an exclamation mark as chek, so it's inconsistent and IMO should just be dropped (rather than adding to other possible interjections, which just would bring more problems). It also sticks out in multiple choice thingies, which slightly defeats the game element, and the game element is a part of the learning process.

[Ifak]

Yeah.. the chek thing is a good point. I got it from Mr. Peterson's blog when I was looking for audio here: http://www.dothraki.com/2012/07/comic-con-again-off-again/

So what if I moved it to the phrases level and kept the exclamation mark? Let me know what you think.
Also, I've been giving the good vs well a thought and I figured, what if chek, even if it means well or "nicely" as you said, could also be used as a response to "I made some pancakes". The question is, what does the English "good" mean when we reply with it? And more importantly, what could a Dothraki chek mean? What if instead of "I made some pancakes" - "That is a good thing", we are actually saying "things are well" / "all is good", as in stating your current change in overall satisfaction. I think a word that means "well" could be used for that. I may be way off here and I'm not sure if I'm making any sense. Just a thought that passed my mind.


On to the adjectives that can be verbs explanation. I will try to write it myself. I'll put it right here for your comments and criticisms. So imagine, if you will, that you are a learner going through my course:

 - You've been told in a block of text that this is a course that teaches you Dothraki and that you should learn some grammar along side it. Also, before you start, have a look through sunquan's pronunciation video.

 - You have now started learning the Everyday words and after 3 days of practice you feel ready to advance to the next level.

 - Now you learn about noun animacy in another block of text.

 - You start learning the words for Family members.

 - You start learning words for things that you find Outside.

 - Now you come upon your first level of Adjectives

 - So after you learn some adjectives you stumble upon yet another block of text explaining how the adjectives you just learned can be used as verbs:

Adjectival Verbs

In Dothraki some verbs work as adjectives. In the following levels you will learn some words that are nothing more than verb forms of the adjectives that you have learned in the previous level. So let's take for example a noun and an adjective that you have already learned:

qevir - forest (noun)
zhokwa - big (adjective)

Now if you've been learning any grammar yet you might have already learned that adjectives come after the words that they describe. Let's put our two words together and from a sentence. There are two ways we can do this:

Qevir zhokwa - Big forest.
Qevir zhokwae - The forest is big.

In the first sentence we used the adjective zhokwa to describe the forest.
In the second sentence we used the word zhokwae which is a conjugated form of the verb zhokwalat - to be big.

To learn more about conjugation check out this youtube video: Dothraki Tutorial Lesson 1 - Pronouns and Present Tense



 - And then in the next level you learn the verbs which are basically all the same words as in the Adjectives level before that.

Was that correct and clear enough?

There is another thing. It has probably become apparent that English is not my native language. So I would really appreciate it if you guys corrected me on any awkward or incorrect sentences, descriptions or titles that I might have produced in the course. Thanks!

[Ifak]

Things that I need before I can publish this course:

 - A conclusion to the chek! dilemma.
 - A confirmation that the adjectival verb instructions are correct.



Other things that I am waiting for:

 - Sunquan8094's answer and permission to use his voice.


All I'm doing now is waiting for a bunch of replies and we're done. Thanks a bunch for all the help so far.