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How to improve your Pashto - This is beneficial for all Pashtuns!
As salaamu 3alaykum,
Majority of PF members are either born in the West or moved to the West at an early age. Others who are from Pashtunkhwa may have trouble speaking reading and writing Pashto properly due to the fact that there is no proper Pashto education in Pakistan.
Some Pashtuns who are from Afghanistan may have an inclination to rely heavily on borrowed words and lack the ability to have proper conversation in Pashto where they use proper Pashto words.
Bottom line is, vast majority of Pashtuns who communicate in other languages loose their ability to communicate properly in Pashto.
You may speak Pashto with bad grammar and excessive use of borrowed words with people from your inner circle, but in order to preserve Pashto language and your identity as a Pashtun, you need to speak Pashto like it is supposed to be spoken. There may not be a standardized official Pashto but there are several important matters that need to be improved regardless of your background and your region of origin.
First of all: every literate Pashtun must be able to read and write in Pashto using Pashto alphabet. This means using the special letters in the Arabic alphabet invented to produce Pashto sounds like the retro flex. This means that you should be able to use a Pashto keyboard instead of relying on a Farsi or Urdu Keyboard.
We are living in computer age and we can use different apps, websites and settings on our operating systems to type in Pashto. It takes little effort to set up your Pashto keyboard. If you need any help, please ask for it in this thread.
Reliance on Urdu and Farsi keyboards or script prevents you from communicating properly with all Pashtuns. For example: if you use the Urdu script and Urdu adaptation of the Arabic for ' ه ' or ' د ' people not familiar with Urdu won't be able to understand what you have written. Likewise, if you use Arabic or Farsi script, you won't be able to use retroflex and the various 'ى ' types used in Pashto. People may not be able to read and understand what you are saying.
You can observe this problem on facebook. Pashtuns from across the world comment on topics there and it is very difficult to read and understand what they are trying to say.
We can sit back and wait until some government standardized Pashto or let everyone speak in other languages in order to avoid Pashto all together. But that's not the proper Pashtun attitude. Pashtuns are by nature self reliant. We have preserved our language and culture for centuries. The modern age of mass communication is the perfect opportunity for us to improve our language. We can do this from the bottom up. If we all make an effort, in future people will read and write in proper Pashto using the Pashto keyboard.
Writing may be the backbone of an effort to improve your Pashto skills but you need improve your vocabulary as well. Today, we see more people using borrowed worlds due to lack of Pashto alternatives. Usage of borrowed words can solve problems in the short run but in the long run it will erode the language and make it obselite. There have been made efforts to improve Pashto by some linguists. The invention of new Pashto words referred to as Pashto neologism is a long term solution for Pashtuns. Some neologisms may sound quirky but most of it is very useful.
Aside from neologism, we need to revive proper Pashto words used in core areas. Pashtuns in periphery like in Kabul and Peshawar tend to use more borrowed words than people from the core areas. By listening to and communicating with people from core areas we can preserve the usage of proper Pashto words.
In modern computer age, we have the ability to make these improvements by listening to dialogues online. There are thousands of audio and video archives of Pashto dialogues on YouTube and on various radio websites. We can listen to dialogues on daily bases where we get exposed to people from various regions.
I personally prefer political talk shows on Afghan tv channels. Their guests from rural areas speak in the most beautiful manner. I might not agree with their political views and opinions but listening to them improves my Pashto and teaches me about sentiments and views of all sorts of Pashtuns.
If you have access to internet, it is very easy to find all sorts of online archives of audio and video dialogues.
Vocabulary may improve by listening. But it also improves your grammar. You can learn from well spoken people from core areas by paying attention to their grammar.
Grammar is very important because Pashto is a very archaic and complex language. There are PDF books of Pashto grammar available online. in PF library there are a few free books you can download.
Reading well written Pashto combines all of the above. Try to read articles on various Pashto websites. There are some websites with decent editors like BBC Pashto or NUNN.ASIA where you can learn allot. Avoid blog posts by people who write in substandard Pashto.
Finally, after absorbing all of the above, you need to write and speak more often with Pashtuns you havens spoken to before. Try to meet people or contact them online and start a conversation by relying heavily on what you have learned recently. Make sure your newly gained knowledge is put to practice. By practicing you will eventually improve your Pashto.
Being lazy and only talking about how great Pashto is while being unable to speak proper Pashto is not only pathetic but it is also detrimental to the future of Pashto language. Don't be an instrument of destruction of your own language and heritage by speaking and boasting about it without actually doing anything about it. Start now!
Majority of PF members are either born in the West or moved to the West at an early age. Others who are from Pashtunkhwa may have trouble speaking reading and writing Pashto properly due to the fact that there is no proper Pashto education in Pakistan.
Some Pashtuns who are from Afghanistan may have an inclination to rely heavily on borrowed words and lack the ability to have proper conversation in Pashto where they use proper Pashto words.
Bottom line is, vast majority of Pashtuns who communicate in other languages loose their ability to communicate properly in Pashto.
You may speak Pashto with bad grammar and excessive use of borrowed words with people from your inner circle, but in order to preserve Pashto language and your identity as a Pashtun, you need to speak Pashto like it is supposed to be spoken. There may not be a standardized official Pashto but there are several important matters that need to be improved regardless of your background and your region of origin.
First of all: every literate Pashtun must be able to read and write in Pashto using Pashto alphabet. This means using the special letters in the Arabic alphabet invented to produce Pashto sounds like the retro flex. This means that you should be able to use a Pashto keyboard instead of relying on a Farsi or Urdu Keyboard.
We are living in computer age and we can use different apps, websites and settings on our operating systems to type in Pashto. It takes little effort to set up your Pashto keyboard. If you need any help, please ask for it in this thread.
Reliance on Urdu and Farsi keyboards or script prevents you from communicating properly with all Pashtuns. For example: if you use the Urdu script and Urdu adaptation of the Arabic for ' ه ' or ' د ' people not familiar with Urdu won't be able to understand what you have written. Likewise, if you use Arabic or Farsi script, you won't be able to use retroflex and the various 'ى ' types used in Pashto. People may not be able to read and understand what you are saying.
You can observe this problem on facebook. Pashtuns from across the world comment on topics there and it is very difficult to read and understand what they are trying to say.
We can sit back and wait until some government standardized Pashto or let everyone speak in other languages in order to avoid Pashto all together. But that's not the proper Pashtun attitude. Pashtuns are by nature self reliant. We have preserved our language and culture for centuries. The modern age of mass communication is the perfect opportunity for us to improve our language. We can do this from the bottom up. If we all make an effort, in future people will read and write in proper Pashto using the Pashto keyboard.
Writing may be the backbone of an effort to improve your Pashto skills but you need improve your vocabulary as well. Today, we see more people using borrowed worlds due to lack of Pashto alternatives. Usage of borrowed words can solve problems in the short run but in the long run it will erode the language and make it obselite. There have been made efforts to improve Pashto by some linguists. The invention of new Pashto words referred to as Pashto neologism is a long term solution for Pashtuns. Some neologisms may sound quirky but most of it is very useful.
Aside from neologism, we need to revive proper Pashto words used in core areas. Pashtuns in periphery like in Kabul and Peshawar tend to use more borrowed words than people from the core areas. By listening to and communicating with people from core areas we can preserve the usage of proper Pashto words.
In modern computer age, we have the ability to make these improvements by listening to dialogues online. There are thousands of audio and video archives of Pashto dialogues on YouTube and on various radio websites. We can listen to dialogues on daily bases where we get exposed to people from various regions.
I personally prefer political talk shows on Afghan tv channels. Their guests from rural areas speak in the most beautiful manner. I might not agree with their political views and opinions but listening to them improves my Pashto and teaches me about sentiments and views of all sorts of Pashtuns.
If you have access to internet, it is very easy to find all sorts of online archives of audio and video dialogues.
Vocabulary may improve by listening. But it also improves your grammar. You can learn from well spoken people from core areas by paying attention to their grammar.
Grammar is very important because Pashto is a very archaic and complex language. There are PDF books of Pashto grammar available online. in PF library there are a few free books you can download.
Reading well written Pashto combines all of the above. Try to read articles on various Pashto websites. There are some websites with decent editors like BBC Pashto or NUNN.ASIA where you can learn allot. Avoid blog posts by people who write in substandard Pashto.
Finally, after absorbing all of the above, you need to write and speak more often with Pashtuns you havens spoken to before. Try to meet people or contact them online and start a conversation by relying heavily on what you have learned recently. Make sure your newly gained knowledge is put to practice. By practicing you will eventually improve your Pashto.
Being lazy and only talking about how great Pashto is while being unable to speak proper Pashto is not only pathetic but it is also detrimental to the future of Pashto language. Don't be an instrument of destruction of your own language and heritage by speaking and boasting about it without actually doing anything about it. Start now!
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