Read the popular quotes (film or book) and names again and again, they have a nice melody so you can easily remember them if you try seriously... then you somehow get a feeling for the language, as unlike real foreign languages you cant really listen to songs or well-known names ... by doing that, you automatically remember some of the most basic words and structures
After a while, "elvish" begins to sound familiar, and without really learning it, you know some basic words, from now on it's the same as in "real" foreign languages - try to translate things based on the words you already know... like, if you know the word for "star", look up the other words and the grammar and try to translate "the star shines in heaven" or stuff like that... or "I see a star"... whatever
Or - use some elvish quote you like and where you know what it means, and see if you could translate it
of course the result is a lot of nonsense in the beginning but that helps
Just - dont concentrate on learning words in the beginning, rather understand the structure, then learning the words will work automatically after a while
There are some good elvish courses online, try one of them - but I dont think its the best thing to start with them, better first get a sense for the character of the language and listen, then learn and say things yourself.
That takes a while, but in my opinion it works quite well
And for memorizing single words - speak them again and again, write them down (!) while thinking of the meaning, many of Tolkien's words are concepted to somehow sound like the thing they represent - I mean, Môr just cant mean anything else than "dark"... or "ech" - such a sharp word... means "spear" ... "hathol", like hissing air and then a sudden dark stop -> means "axe"
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
__________________ The only solid thing in life, the only thing I know for sure is that eventually I'm going to die...When that day comes...I will embrace passing as I would an old friend...
one question...when will you use elvish in your everyday lives? Planning a summer vacation to the undying lands? c'mon, ppl. why don’t you learn Arabic and make some money in the middle east , or something. if you're gonna take the time to learn another language, at least let it be worth something. be productive. bilinguals make alot of cash...learn a real language people. no elvish, please. its for your own good.
what's wrong withn learning elvish? People have learned Klingon (from Star Trek for all u non-trekkies) People learn non-real langs for fun. U can't stop ppl from having fun, can u?
Why only think so commercially
Maybe people learn elvish languages because they actually like the language and will never like any other language that much?
Maybe people learn it because no other language they know equals it in the beauty of its grammatical, phonetical and etymological structure?
Maybe they learn it because they think loving a language is worth a lot more than the ability to make money with it?
Maybe because they like playing around with languages that gives them creative freedom as there will never be somebody being able to tell them the way they express things is wrong?
Maybe they like the challenge of trying to work with a language that doesn't have words for anything so their own sense of finding alternate ways of expressing things is required?
Maybe they want to say things they would never tell anybody in a 'real' language because they don't want others to know it, and still have to get it off their chest?
Maybe they simply have a philological taste similar to Tolkien's?
Or maybe all of that together?
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
__________________ The only solid thing in life, the only thing I know for sure is that eventually I'm going to die...When that day comes...I will embrace passing as I would an old friend...
You know, I bet all of those geeks who learned Elfish in highschool by themselves got laughed at...And then, they got to help make LoTR and made lots of money...look who's laughing now!! I've tried multible times (though not recently) to try to learn Elfish from the back of RoTK (the appendix) but it's always been too complicated for me. I can write dwarfish!
__________________ "I want to give you, whatever you need. What is it you need? Is it within me?"
'Legolas' is elvish
a silvan dialect of Sindarin, to be exact a combination of the words "Laigolas" and "Legolast" probably ("Greenleaves" and "Keensighted")
Written like this (first Tengwar, then Runes/Cirth)
Attachment: legolas.jpg
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__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
Nithio... isn't that Welsh for "winnow"
I've never heard of Iifillin but isn't 'ifillin' a Finnish word
But in any Eldarin language no idea... Nithio could be the imperative of a verb "nithia-", but I don't know any like that... unless its derived from nîth 'youth'?
*is lost*
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.