Writing a letter to my cousin- Need translation to Croatian

[Janica08]

I want to write to my cousin in Croatia to help practice my Croatian..I know very little so I was wondering if someone could me with my letter to my cousin. There are two of them but only one will probably read this email. I think it will really help me with my croatian. I really don't know much but the little that I do know I will TRY to write in croatian!
Definitely won't be accurate but I think I need to try instead of just saying "hey translate this all!" lol Just have a little mercy and don't make too much fun..If anyone can help me out..I would appreciate it greatly! Hvala!

Bok Zoron or Davor!

Kako si mi? Sta ima novoga? Kako je vrijeme tamo? ovdje je malo vijetar, ali nije Bura to! Kako je tvoj radit? jos nisam nasla novoga posao ali hopefully soon I will! Davor, Ja sam jako ljuta! Ne mogu gledat dvd sto se me dao. (Prljavo Kazaliste) Neznam zasto ali ne radit. Mozda the dvd systems are different from Euope than in America.I guess I will just have to go back to Europe to watch it ! (hehe)

By the way, Ja cu pisat samo na Hrvastski! Molim te, samo pisi me na hrvastki Ja trebam vjezbat! Hvala

Podrav,

Johna

[pthalo]

i'll let a real croatian correct this (i can spot some mistakes, but probably not all of them), but about the dvds... yes, the dvd systems are different in europe and america BUT you can probably watch it on your computer. I think (but am not sure) that smplayer can play any of them without having to change settings in windows, so try that first (google, download, it's my favourite program for watching dvds). otherwise, when you insert the dvd and try to play it on your computer, your computer will prompt you to change your dvd drive's settings (it's really easy). but the sad thing is you can only change it five times total...

so the best option is that if you have more than one computer with a dvd drive, then you could change the drive settings to european on one computer and keep it american on the other computer. the only thing this will affect is watching dvds on the computer.


but in any case, don't be mad at Davor, it's not his fault, it's the fault of the companies that produce movies and release them at different times around the globe and then have to think of dumb (and easy to get around) ways to prevent people from legitimately sharing movies internationally.

[zana]

Here are my corrections!

Bok Zorane ili Davore! (I think that your cousins name is Zoran, not Zoron) )

Kako si mi? Sta ima novoga? Kakvo je vrijeme tamo? ovdje je malo vjetrovito, ali nije bura! Kako je tvoj posao? jos nisam nasla novi posao ali nadam se da ću ga uskoro naći! Davore, jako sam ljuta jer ne mogu gledati dvd Prljavog kazališta koji si mi dao. Ne znam zasto, ali ne radi. Mozda je sistem prženja dvd-a u Hrvatskoj drugačiji od američkog.Čini mi se da ću jednostavno morati doći natrag u Europu da ga pogledam, hehe..

Usput, pisat ću samo na hrvatskom! Molim te da mi i ti pises na hrvatskom jer trebam vjezbati! Hvala!

Pozdrav,

Johna

[Janica08]

Thank you pthalo for that information..I think I will pass this problem to my twin brother who is a computer expert

And thank you Zana for all the corrections and translations! ugh it seem so difficult to me with all the different endings for nouns! Some of it also seems foreign to me that I don't think I would understand if I had not asked you to translate. Mainly because my parents speak an Istrijan dialect which seems so Different from this! But..im not going to get frustrated! I'm just going to keep practicing!! Thank you soo much ..this forum is great!

[miki444]

Thank you pthalo for that information..I think I will pass this problem to my twin brother who is a computer expert

And thank you Zana for all the corrections and translations! ugh it seem so difficult to me with all the different endings for nouns! Some of it also seems foreign to me that I don't think I would understand if I had not asked you to translate. Mainly because my parents speak an Istrijan dialect which seems so Different from this! But..im not going to get frustrated! I'm just going to keep practicing!! Thank you soo much ..this forum is great!

do you speak croatian with your parents ?

[Janica08]

My parents have always spoke Istrijan but for some reason my siblings and I NEVER learned to speak it. I'm convinced that my mom has almost forgotten how to speak Croatian..I tell her to speak Croatian/Istrijan and what does she do? Speaks to me in English of course! My dad passed away ..and ever since than I have always wanted to learn how to speak it, in addition to my love for learning languages.My resources are very limited which makes it all the more difficult...But i am determined to learn the language! I was there for 3 weeks this summer and I feel like I already picked up on some. I just need to keep practicing/writing.

[pthalo]

Maybe if you try to speak Croatian to her she'll answer you in Croatian? I had the same problem growing up... I didn't grow up in Hungary and I would beg my mother to speak to me in Hungarian and she'd teach me a few words and then tell me she didn't speak Hungarian very well... then she would call my grandmother and the two of them would speak in Hungarian to each other. And the first time she took me to Hungary, she seemed to get on just fine in Hungarian. But after high school I moved here and now I speak it better than she does. (Her Hungarian is actually very good, and she has a wide-ranging vocabulary, she just speaks a little slowly and makes a few very minor grammar mistakes that are common among native speakers who don't have a high level of education -- she has a high level of education but she was educated in English, in America, so that makes sense.)

I bet you could find some people in your town in New Jersey to practice with, though. You could put out an add on Craig's List is or in the newspaper that you're looking for a language partner to practice speaking Croatian with. (If you're not 18 yet, you should probably get your mother to come with you the first time you meet the person.)

And for writing you always have us

[miki444]

so you have a love for learning languages ? what languages do you speak besides english ?
well, if you want to train how to speak there's skype
also reading some croatian newspapers online or forums would be good,
additionally you could look for croatian songs you like and try to translate them here.

[Janica08]

thanks for the ideas guys
I started listening to Croatian(+Bosnian/Serbian) music a while ago (just because i really loved the music) and than I started getting translations for lyrics which has really helped me with vocabulary. I tried reading some newspaper but I think the vocabulary is just too difficult for me ,for now at least. I do have quite a few friends/acquaintances who are Croatian, but believe it or not, they don't speak it as well! the ones who do know it well, I am not very close with..(go figure) haha Pthalo your right, I guess my mom is just used to speaking english to me. Because she speaks strictly Istrijan to her realtives! So, I know this might be bad but ..since she is constantly on the phone with her friends I will sometimes pick up the phone just to listen. (It's for a good cause!! Honestly tho, it gets so boring sometimes the nonsense they talk about.. but on the other hand its really helping me!!

question for you guys- I think its important for me to know the grammar and rules to any language. Now I can't find Anything on specifically Croatian, but I saw one member here posted a website for Serbian Grammar (http://www.lztranslation.com/serbian_grammar.html)
which I find to be fantastic (I am finally learning/understanding declension!!) Croatian and Serbian grammar both follow the same rules right? I know the vocabulary can be slightly different ..which isn't a big deal but I just want to make sure the grammar is the same.

[pthalo]

find someone who speaks it well and get close to them!

the grammar is almost the same. about 99%. The main things you will notice is: yeah, different vocabulary. not as different as native speakers would lead you to believe. *g* Serbian uses "ekavski" (saying "lepo" instead of the Croatian "lijepo" or "lipo"), and also Croatian uses the infinite more the way English does. "hoću pjevati" (I want to/will sing, Croatian) vs. "hoću da pevam" (Serbian). Again, it's not enough of a thing that it'll cause problems in your learning, and if you do happen to learn the Serbian form instead of the Croatian one, people will correct you.

Also in Croatian, sometimes you use a form of the infinitive that ends with a "t" instead of "ti", like "idem vježbat" (I'm going to go practice). You won't see that in Serbian (idem da vežbam). And the Croatian usage of "trebati" (to need) is a lot easier than the Serbian usage. (But lots of Serbians use it the Croatian way too.)

On that page (I confess I didn't open the pdfs because I don't like them, but I can guess what they will be), almost everything will be the same, but a few pronouns are different. Croatian uses "tko" for "who", and Serbian uses "ko". This is true for all forms of "ko", so, for example "netko" (somebody, Croatian) "neko" (Serbian). And in Croatian you say "što" for "what" whereas in Serbian it's "šta".

Just about everything else on that page should be the same in Croatian.

[MayGoLoco]

Have you thought about buying a croatian learningbook? It might be very helpfull.

You can try to translate any type of croatian songs or texts into english by using a dictionary for the words you don't know. That way you can learn words and maybe get a feel for sentence constructions.

You could also take a croatian course, is there is any in New Jersey.

[miki444]

. And in Croatian you say "što" for "what" whereas in Serbian it's "šta".

that's not true, you can use both in both languages.

[pthalo]

that's not true, you can use both in both languages.

oh, I didn't know that.

But I haven't seen što used to mean "what" in Serbian before.

[Janica08]

Yeah I remember my cousins using both "sta" i "sto" and actually in istrijan we say "ča" (as well as the island my aunt is from in northern dalmatia)
So thats sta, sto,ča! and for"tko,ko" we say "ki" lol I am so using to hearing istrijan that when i speak usually the istrijan words i know will come out first. I wish there were no such thing as dialects tho, it makes it all the more confusing! oh well. thanks all

[pthalo]

there's nothing wrong with speaking your own dialect, though.