Language in Afghanistan

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PreMedAdAG

I am so smart. S-M-R-T :)
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Hi all,
I know this doesn't belong here, but I thought I'd give it a try...

I love my neighbors, they are sooooo nice and soooo giving, but they don't speak English. THey just moved here from Afghanistan and just brought me a HUMUNGOUS plate of amazing food, chicken, rice pasta that their mom made... NUMMS!! Anyway, they understand "thank you", but I want to write them a card.. I don't know what language they speak, but I want to say, "Thank you so much for the food, it was very good"

Can anyone help me?

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I think most of them speak '' pachtoun '', but unfortunately, I don't know how to speak it, let alone write it. Don't they speak another language ?
 
[Bisyaar tashakoor bareh noneh mazadaarit] this roughly translates into thankyou very much for the delicious food. They will be very happy. Try to pronounce it instead of writing it it will mean more.

PreMedAdAG said:
Hi all,
I know this doesn't belong here, but I thought I'd give it a try...

I love my neighbors, they are sooooo nice and soooo giving, but they don't speak English. THey just moved here from Afghanistan and just brought me a HUMUNGOUS plate of amazing food, chicken, rice pasta that their mom made... NUMMS!! Anyway, they understand "thank you", but I want to write them a card.. I don't know what language they speak, but I want to say, "Thank you so much for the food, it was very good"

Can anyone help me?
 
Last edited:
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bgtati said:
I'm afghan, so tell them this:
[Bisyaar tashakoor bareh noneh mazadaarit] this roughly translates into thankyou very much for the delicious food. They will be very happy. Try to pronounce it instead of writing it it will mean more.

wow, thanks, can you give me the phenetic spelling so i don't sound like a total ***** when i do it
 
They may also speak farsi, a persian language. Though i don't speak it, so can't help you there. sorry.
 
Pashtun is the language spoken in Afghanistan. They may also speak urdu and arabic. Farsi is mostly in Iran and Iraq, but again the Afghans might as well.
 
ASDIC said:
Pashtun is the language spoken in Afghanistan. They may also speak urdu and arabic. Farsi is mostly in Iran and Iraq, but again the Afghans might as well.

Afghanis speak a farsi dialect-dari.
 
crap now I'm totally confused... any suggestions for a nice gesture back to them? I brought them a plate of cookies for xmas and when I was there I mentioned how good their apt. always smells (they have lots of small children so I think the gramma cooks for all of them), anyway, the food was sooooo good (they gave me way too much so I have lots of leftovers). There was this spinach type of veggie with good flavor that was my favorite. Anyone know what it's called?

Thanks for the help guys.. i think since so many dialects are spoken, maybe I'm better off just knocking saying thank you again and bringing some of my pasta salad over that i made today.
 
ASDIC said:
Pashtun is the language spoken in Afghanistan. They may also speak urdu and arabic. Farsi is mostly in Iran and Iraq, but again the Afghans might as well.

Iraqis don't speak Farsi, but Arabic.

Some Afghani's do speak a dialect of Farsi though. If I knew, I could help, sorry 🙂 It is very unlikely that they speak Arabic unless they took it in school.
 
I think there are many different languages spoken, depending on the area of the country they are from. Try to find out what ethnicity they are, and that should help you. I know that the difference from north-east to south is major. Different ethnically and linquistically. I think the pashtun's are in the south (kandahar), but they have uzbek's and others in the north-east that speak a diff. lingo. (northern alliance dudes etc.) You can do a country profile search on the cia's website.
 
MedDreamer said:
Iraqis don't speak Farsi, but Arabic.

Some Afghani's do speak a dialect of Farsi though. If I knew, I could help, sorry 🙂 It is very unlikely that they speak Arabic unless they took it in school.

Couldn't the Shia' in Iraq speak Farsi? Just curious.
 
cfdavid said:
Couldn't the Shia' in Iraq speak Farsi? Just curious.

they could I suppose, if they were Irani, but most of them are Arab, so they speak Arabic, being shia doesn't automatically mean you speak Farsi, just like all Muslims don't speak arabic, sure they can read it maybe, and know how to recite things, but that's about it.

PreMedAdAG said:
crap now I'm totally confused... any suggestions for a nice gesture back to them? I brought them a plate of cookies for xmas and when I was there I mentioned how good their apt. always smells (they have lots of small children so I think the gramma cooks for all of them), anyway, the food was sooooo good (they gave me way too much so I have lots of leftovers). There was this spinach type of veggie with good flavor that was my favorite. Anyone know what it's called?

Thanks for the help guys.. i think since so many dialects are spoken, maybe I'm better off just knocking saying thank you again and bringing some of my pasta salad over that i made today
Most of the time ppl speak more than one dialect,
see this:
bgtati said:
I'm afghan, so tell them this:
[Bisyaar tashakoor bareh noneh mazadaarit] this roughly translates into thankyou very much for the delicious food. They will be very happy. Try to pronounce it instead of writing it it will mean more.
just say it like it's spelled
 
cfdavid said:
Couldn't the Shia' in Iraq speak Farsi? Just curious.

I concur with what sunni said, unless they were persian, no one in iraq speaks farsi. Everyone in there speaks arabic (with variations of the dialect from north to south, Moslawi from Mosul, Baghdadi from Baghdad and so forth). Some speak additional languages depending on where they were from originaly (Kurdish, Armenian, Arameic,Turkish..etc) but the official langauge is Arabic.
 
so is there a good chance that if I say that to them, they will look at me like deer in headlights? If so, I guess I'll just say thank you again and chow down
 
Heres what i know to be true...cuz it is!

There are TWO main languages in Afghanistan. Dari (which is a dialect of farsi) and Pashto. If this family is from Kabul, they most likely speak dari. In that case, the translation you got from the afghan guy above is what you want to say to them. If they are from a southern province, like Khandahar, then they most likely speak Pashto. A lot of people who speak Pashto also speak Dari so stick with the translation you got above. It is your safest bet.

As for the food, if they speak Dari, the spinach dish is :"Sabzee" which i agree...its really yummy.

hope this helps
 
Heres what i know to be true...cuz it is!

There are TWO main languages in Afghanistan. Dari (which is a dialect of farsi) and Pashto. If this family is from Kabul, they most likely speak dari. In that case, the translation you got from the afghan guy above is what you want to say to them. If they are from a southern province, like Khandahar, then they most likely speak Pashto. A lot of people who speak Pashto also speak Dari so stick with the translation you got above. It is your safest bet.

As for the food, if they speak Dari, the spinach dish is called "Sabzee" which i agree...its really yummy.

hope this helps
 
bgtati said:
I'm afghan, so tell them this:
[Bisyaar tashakoor bareh noneh mazadaarit] this roughly translates into thankyou very much for the delicious food. They will be very happy. Try to pronounce it instead of writing it it will mean more.

😱 :laugh: Don't tell them that! gbtati is telling you to let them know that the chicken tasted like freeze dried $hit and that you wouldn't even feed that rice pasta to a dying German Shepard.

I'm not sure how this would go over. 🙄
 
Gatorade... don't be a nerd! C'mon I really want to express my gratitude !!

Anyway, is there a way to say, "I'm sorry if I say this incorrectly, but I was trying to learn how to say............................ bisyaar tashakoor bareh noneh mazadaarit?

Thanks for all the help!!!
 
UCMDwannabe said:
As for the food, if they speak Dari, the spinach dish is called "Sabzee" which i agree...its really yummy.

hope this helps

Dude... I LOVE SABZEE then!!!!!!! How do you make it?
 
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