Sentences - try to translate

I have come across a new learning resource: Azərbaycan Dili I mərhələ by Mina Quliyeva. Published in 2001. Might be hard to find in bookstores, but it is available to borrow from the CCF Library. Instructions and explanations in French only. Clear explanations and nicely presented. I recommend it.

This is my attempt to come up with simple sentences for words in Chapter 1. They are part of the "Phonétique" and are only there for review of pronunciation, but I thought I would use it for vocabulary building. The list is long! All done now. I had some help to correct my mistakes.

Quotations are from dictionaries; they might have typos, so let me know.

Good luck!

United Aid for Azerbaijan - social campaign

UAFA has produced a wonderful video to promote disability awareness in Azerbaijan. The video has subtitles in Azerbaijani. See if you can follow it.

I have written out the text below and follow it with my translation. I hope I've got everything correct. Let me know if there are errors please!

News article

News about the oil industry is not very interesting, but this article is a good translation and reading exercise since it has many examples of possessive case. From BBC Azeri.

Rövnəq Abdullayev: BP-SOCAR əməkdaşlığı davam edir

Rovneq Abdullayev: BP-Socar collaboration continues

Azərbaycan Dövlət Neft Şirkətinin Prezidenti Rövnəq Abdullayev cümə axşamı Britaniya Parlamentinin Lordlar Palatasında şirkətin enerji strategiyası və dünya enerjisinin vəziyyəti barədə çıxış edib.

The Azerbaijan National Oil Company's president, Rovneq Adbullayev, spoke to the British House of Lords on Thursday about the company's energy strategy and the situation of energy in the world.

BBC videos - English and Azerbaijani

I noticed a translation of an interesting video that I saw on BBC's English website. The subject is Uruguay's president, Jose Mujica, who is dubbed "the poorest president in the world" by international media.

Here is the English version: Uruquay's Jose Mujica - 'the world's poorest president'.

Here is the Azerbaijani version: Dünyanın ən "yoxsul" prezidenti.

Əmr forması - Imperative

I have long been unhappy with the way books present the imperative mood in Azerbaijani. With the help of my friend Tağı I have come to see that it should not be presented as it is in the texts that I have.

Let me explain...

This form, known as Felin əmr forması, Əmr forması, or Əmr cümləsi, is usually presented in one of two ways:

1. Commands to you singular and you plural as we have in English.
Gəl! = Come!
Getmə = Don't go.
İcazə verin = Please allow [me] [to pass by].

2. A complete set of imperative "commands" conjugated for all three persons, singular and plural.

Both are confusing for native English speakers in my opinion, because the imperative is really used in different ways in Azerbaijani. It can be a command, a request, a suggestion, or a question. Thus, it seems better (for those who hate grammar especially) to just think in terms of command/suggestion versus question. And let's face it - the translation for the question is often "Let me, let him, let us, let them". Number one, people just don't talk like this anymore. Number two, Let's go! is a command, not a question - it belongs in the first section given above. Number three, Let me get you... and Let them get you... are really subjunctive, not imperative. And most English speakers would simply say "He/they should get you some..."  Finally, the first person singular use of this in Azerbaijani seems to me to always be a question. So,...

Word Order in Azerbaijani

Another lovely post from our guest author Alef:

In general, the usual word order in Azerbaijani is Subject-Object-Verb. For example:

Mən azərbaycanca danışıram.

However, Azerbaijani word order is very flexible and you can manipulate it depending on what you want to emphasize and how formal or poetic you want your sentence to be. As sentences get longer and more complex, this flexibility of word order decreases but even then it is possible to change it. Let’s see how many ways of saying I study the Azerbaijani language there would be:

Mən Azərbaycan dilini öyrənirəm.

Öyrənirəm Azərbaycan dilini mən.

Mən öyrənirəm Azərbaycan dilini.

Öyrənirəm mən Azərbaycan dilini.

Azərbaycan dilini öyrənirəm mən.

Azərbaycan dilini mən öyrənirəm.

A thematic dictionary for beginners

Thanks to Tağı for putting this together. It's trilingual - Azerbaijani, English, and French.

Buyurun. Here you go. Le voilà!