Post: #1

I've been promoted into a management position at work and most of the men I ended up in charge with are first generation (or "1.5 generation") immigrants from Somalia. The majority of them are not terribly proficient English speakers and have a lot of trouble understanding what I'm trying to say to them. Likewise I have a lot of trouble understanding them.

For the record I speak decent intermediate German and German resources in general seem somewhat promising 1000 german-somali phrases, though this is the same book series as the English one, 1000 basic phrases english - somali. Neither have any book reviews so I'm a little leery about buying them.

The public library has nothing on the subject. I can't seem to find anything on torrent sites either, no pimsleur or anything. It's surprising that there is no interest in the topic despite the 20-30 thousand or so Somalian immigrants that moved to Minnesota in the 2000s.

If anybody knows where to get resources or has learned it (for work or travel??) you can drop me a PM or something. Thanks for any suggestions you guys might have.

Post: #2

Are you close to St. Paul? I checked really quickly and saw they had some resources, mainly just dictionaries though. Minneapolis should have something too.

I've never done Somali but I practiced Spanish a little on Youtube, lots of good video series. Here's a Somali video.





I like interactive learning more, but video series like that might be better than nothing. You could copy down key phrases and pronunciation and hopefully the people you work with could help you improve from there.

Good luck with this.

Post: #3

God bless you man

Post: #4

http://www.african.ohio.edu/African%20La...omali.html

This person is a college professor teaching Somali. I bet if you emailed him he would have a few good resources.

Hopefully he does not just send you a link to a textbook.

Post: #5

Some Somali resources.

Culture and News:

Check out "Culture and Customs of Somalia" by Mohamed Abdullahi

http://www.echominnesota.org/sites/defau...ance_1.pdf

http://www.somaliareport.com/

Language

http://learn101.org/somali.php

http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/somali.php

http://wikitravel.org/en/Somali_phrasebook

http://www.memrise.com/course/52251/soma...beginners/

Post: #6

Thanks for the responses. I'll post an update.
I haven't had much luck learning anything outside of the basics, and nothing that I have actually tried speaking has worked whatsoever. Apparently it's a tonal language (I think) so that's a very foreign concept to me. Besides which I suspect that my coworkers have different dialects.

Hedonistic Traveler, looking up language resources on youtube is a great tip. It seems like the most useful and applicable resource so far.

Sonsowey the college professor hasn't responded. I think he's busy with classes, so I'll try again during J-term.

Thanks for all the links Osiris, I've been going through them here and there. The somali phrasebook on wikitravel has helped out a lot.

Post: #7

Would you consider hanging out with these guys and trying to pick up some Somali? I always found the best classroom to be a bar full of native speakers of a language. Maybe once a week after work go grab a beer or coffee or some food with them for an hour or two.

I have to assume some speak English to varying degrees, so you could communicate a bit and not be totally lost right?

If you have a Somali phrasebook why not bring it one day and ask the guys to give you pointers on your pronunciation, and you can ask them to add some useful phrases to your book, which you can then write down.

Also, why not try going to local Universities and finding a Somali student group. If there are Somali people who have been raised in your area since childhood, some must speak fluent English and be at the University level, and perhaps you can find some more educated ones who could help you woth the language. MAYBE you could even meet a cute Somali girl to help you

Here is a book called "A Grammar of the Somali Language"
https://play.google.com/store/books/deta...4OAAAAYAAJ

Post: #8

(11-22-2014 10:20 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Would you consider hanging out with these guys and trying to pick up some Somali? I always found the best classroom to be a bar full of native speakers of a language. Maybe once a week after work go grab a beer or coffee or some food with them for an hour or two.

I have to assume some speak English to varying degrees, so you could communicate a bit and not be totally lost right?

If you have a Somali phrasebook why not bring it one day and ask the guys to give you pointers on your pronunciation, and you can ask them to add some useful phrases to your book, which you can then write down.

Also, why not try going to local Universities and finding a Somali student group. If there are Somali people who have been raised in your area since childhood, some must speak fluent English and be at the University level, and perhaps you can find some more educated ones who could help you woth the language. MAYBE you could even meet a cute Somali girl to help you

Here is a book called "A Grammar of the Somali Language"
https://play.google.com/store/books/deta...4OAAAAYAAJ

Part of the reason why I don't want to just jump into a student group is vanity. I want to be able to exhibit some know-how of Somali before going out there and trying it.

A side note - I bought three of the 3 dollar kindle books for somali (the german ones and the english one) and they're pretty much what you would expect for three bucks. Not a whole lot of useful content. There's only a few words per page and it's listed in notecard format with no pronunciation advice so it's pretty worthless for a complete noob. Maybe not so for an intermediate.

I plan on hitting up the local university when I go back to school in Minnesota next fall. That should be pretty cool.

Hanging out with the Somalis should work once I can get some basics down. On the upside I found a badass library that's more local than the crappier one I was going to and they actually had a Somali language section complete with a book that's like fifty bucks on Amazon. Should be able to get a lot of mileage out of it.

Edit: Yeah, that's the very text in that link.

Post: #9

Hades have you learned a foreign language as an adult before?

You need to out yourself out there and make a fool of yourself, and you need to be at peace with that. You can not just study until you are proficient, that will just delay your progress. The quicker you jump into it, the quicker you will learn. The longer you put it off the slower it will be.

I understand you do not want to be embarassed but there is simply no way around it even with learning a common language like Spanish or Russian, much less with Somali.

Dive in head first or frankly you will not get very far.

Post: #10

Sure I have studied a foreign language as an adult before. I got to about C level in German after five months of living over there and a few years of study previously. I know already that I do way better if I pair up practice with self study.

If I tried real world application right now it would be like a guy walking into a calc class without knowing how to count to ten. No need to rush, IMO.

Post: #11

C as in C1 or C2 under the ECF? That is very impressive if so. Good luck with everything, do you know how to ask for a beer yet?

Post: #12

(11-25-2014 05:55 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  C as in C1 or C2 under the ECF? That is very impressive if so. Good luck with everything, do you know how to ask for a beer yet?

ECF and the chart they had at the Goethe Institut might be the exact same thing. This is what they had posted ->

Quote:Basic Speaker
A1 Breakthrough or beginner
A2 Waystage or elementary
Independent Speaker
B1 Threshold or intermediate
B2 Vantage or upper intermediate
Proficient Speaker
C1 Effective Operational Proficiency or advanced
C2 Mastery or proficiency

I left there after C1. Sure wish I ponied up the money to take the B2 exam (you can get a job overseas with that) but took plenty of in class exams and passed them all with pretty good scores.

The classes were basically pass/fail but most of the teachers said I would have no trouble passing the B2 exam. Grammar skills were OK to decent but that takes real effort to get better at.

Post: #13

Have you tried using the Google Translate app on your phone? Say it in English, it repeats in your chosen language, and then you say to them with that as your pronunciation guide. As a practical matter, they usually understand it when the words come out of your phone, but it helps both of you if just pretend the phone is helping you speak Somali. You can even read the words of your phone like a cue card. Eventually you'll need the phone less and less with common phrases.

Post: #14

Depending on how much you want to spend, I have a friend that used a freelancer off elance to create a super simple flash card application equipped with about 1000 words and verbs for around $200. He's able to use this on his phone and has had a lot of success.

Maybe you can do something similar.

Post: #15

Why not learning swahili or Arabic (official language in Somalia)? Swahili is spoken in the South east of Somalia (around Barawa) and many other African countries

Pimsleur has a great CD set, as with all their languages:

http://www.pimsleur.com/Learn-Swahili/Sw...0743598880

These languages might also be a lot easier to learn.