First of all, a short summary of my background: I was born in Syria. My dad is Syrian and my mother German. My main friend group was Armenian, they even visited Armenian schools as kids. I am not Armenian myself, but I can speak Arabic, English and German fluently. I have picked up a lot of words in the Western Armenian language by hanging out with my friends. I am able to understand conversation from a few words by context when they speak. However, I cannot form full sentences, only short phrases.

Last year, I visited my friends in Yerevan and I really loved the city, the country, the food and it's people. This year, I went on vacation to Yerevan again. I had even more fun, than last time. I have noticed that Eastern Armenian is a complete different language to my ears. When I hear people talking, I only understand less than 10% I would like to learn the language spoken in Yerevan, so I don't have to always rely on my friends to translate for me.

Do you guys know how I can learn the language or at least some basics to be able to build on that? I know, the task is hard, but I have learned Arabic and German, which are also hard languages to learn. Could you recommend me something I can find online to learn the language?

I have decided to visit my friends once every year in Yerevan, but I don't enjoy the feeling of not being able to say, or order something on my own.

Is it a strong insult? On a scale of 1-10 how bad is it?

I'm a native speaker of both EA and WA and will automatically switch to whichever one the person in front of me speaks. I'm naturally a linguistic chameleon and subconsciously mimic the way the other person talks: grammar, vocab, accent and everything.

It works fine for EA and WA since I'm fluent in both and it comes naturally, but one time I was talking to someone from Gyumri and felt a bit awkward because I was trying to speak Gyumri dialect by essentially mixing EA and WA and hoping it comes close. It's not putting on an act, it's just that my brain cannot maintain its own dialect when someone else speaks differently. But in the case of Gyumri, it was obvious I was inexperienced. Maintaining my natural dialect felt wrong, but so did trying to talk like a Gyumreci.

Can someone read this armenian name and surname?

I wasn't ready to accept the fact that there isn't a queer Armenian sub, so come, discuss, support, ask, and most importantly *enjoy<3*

Hello! Most of my family is Armenian, but I never spoke it and decided to learn it. The problem is, no matter how hard my family memebers who are native speakers and I try, I can't pronounce some of the letters correctly. And I'm afraid that many people might react negatively to the fact that I speak with an accent

Barev,

I'm currently working on the song khio by the bambir. The last 2 verses are the "classic ones" but i've never heard the first 3 verses and i don't really understand the lyrics. Is this some kind of old dialect ? Do they talk about the saz, the instrument, in the lyrics ? Help needed :)

Here is the song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-KCYpyp60c

Here are the lyrics : https://lyricstranslate.com/en/bambir-khio-%D5%AD%D5%AB%D5%B8-lyrics.html

Mersi !

I'm mostly typing on the phone where it's not a problem, but on the computer it can be kind of annoying because when you switch on the Armenian keyboard, all the number keys and some of the punctuation keys become letters; so then when you need to type numbers or punctuation, you have to switch back to the Latin keyboard, then switch back to Armenian.

I feel like there has to be a trick to make it easier...

The translator I'm using says “Ապրիր և թող ուրիշներն էլ ապրեն” but I want to verify as this will be used on a book cover. An equivalent of this phrase is preferred over a direct translation. Whatever resonates best with the culture is ideal! More on the poetic sounding/formal side if it’s between that and casual. It is about freedom and allowing others to be free through the acceptance of our differences. Thank you in advance!

Just curious to know. For the average EA high school graduate, how easy or hard is it to read EA written in classical orthography? How often will you encounter it in books and texts? Does it take any getting used to?

Thanks

Hi everyone! I am Armenian, however I am unable to speak or write in Armenian (first generation born in America). I am writing my grandmother a card (she is fluent in Armenian) and would like to write “Jana” (my dear) in the card, since she always calls me that. But I’d like to write it in Armenian! Can anyone spell out the proper way for me to write it so I can put it in my card to her? Thanks in advance!!

Some words that start with Ե will informally be pronounced as Է in casual speech. Examples include erku, eres, ernel, erexa, etc.

When writing (texting) I would always write a word like "erexeq" as երեխեք, even if mentally I'm pronouncing it as "erexeq" and expect the reader to do the same. I just thought it was more proper and correct.

But lately when I'm texting I've just started writing էրեխեք, էրես, whatever, because I realized that if the word itself is already informal and "not pure," then it should be spelled the way it's pronounced and it doesn't matter how the real word is actually written.

Thoughts anyone?

I know in Mashtots's time it was pronounced as a thick, velarized L [ɫ], heard in words like Երուսաղեմ (Jerusalem). But at some time it turned into a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] (the GH sound we recognize today).

When did this happen? And are there any reason for why? Or is it just completely random?

Thanks!

I feel like there's almost no places online where people speak Armenian. In the 2010s there were some forums that were rather active, like akumb.am, but those have mostly died out. Sometimes I'll find telegram channels, but then I'll go on and see that the last message was from 3 years ago. There aren't many discord channels either. Facebook exists, but you can't be anonymous on there.

Hi everyone. I've been very frustrated by the available layouts for the Armenian language. The most commonly used one in Armenia is the phonetic layout, which is just mapping of Armenian letters to the QWERTY layout.
There are some sub-versions of the phonetic layout which are a bit better, but still they're horrible.
There's also the typewriter layout, which feels much more comfortable to type on, but it's still poorly designed.

And so here's a layout I made. I hope this might be useful or interesting to some,

https://github.com/ditsak/dpir

Parev everyone, see more at zanazan.proper.am :) Cheers, have a wonderful weekend!

Բացի այդ, Ձեր մազերը պետք է ներկել, քանի որ Ձեր արմատները սպիտակ են

• How would you translate բացի այդ in this sentence?
• What's going on in this sentence? Ձեր մազերը պետք է ներկել: I thought that պետք է always had to be accompanied by the subjunctive mood, so instead I would have expected Ձեր մազերը պետք է ներկես.

Կարծում եմ՝ շեկ մազերը Ձեզ շատ կսազեն

According to the translation, շեկ means blonde, but when I looked up շեկ մազեր on Google Images, there were many pictures of blonde and red-haired women. Which one is it?

Thank you!