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Are some languages better to learn first? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 25 of 43 04 February 2014 at 9:33am | IP Logged | |||||
In my experience it's still a stumbling block for learners (so I correct people on het/de mistakes when I teach), but yes, it's easier than der/die/das. The point is that you get used to gender existing at least (the next step, that case is influenced by gender, comes when you learn German). Keep in mind many learners of Dutch are Anglophones who know nothing about case nor gender. I have equally had Croatian, Italian students and so on and I never need to explain gender to them.
No but usually you can cash in on some discount. It's like getting a voucher so that you take 20% off the price. You still pay, but at least you pay somewhat less. For example if you go through Dutch to German, you get an intro to gender, Germanic syntax rules and compound word formations. You'll still be lost when it comes to case, and there are some other things German has like capitalization of nouns which you need to learn, but it's still a 40% free discount that you get, plus the mental experience of I know a second language - discounting another 10% on your time wasted finding resources. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5157 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 26 of 43 05 February 2014 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can only speak for myself.
I like ths Scandinavian languages better than German. And I learned Norwegian first, which I would do anyway, then got back to German and it's easier indeed. As for Slavic languages, no particular orders. BCMS has a more regular spelling, but since Russian is what I need first, I'll go for it first. I've read somewhere that Slavic languages are more mutually intelligible than Germanic or Romance, so I hope I'll reach my goal anyway. I hope to be able to read the others later after only some previous A1-A2 study. Italian is easier than French and both are syntactically closer to each other and more distant to the Iberian ones. I picked French because it's what i needed most first. WI became able to read Italian after reaching an A2-ish level in French and sometimes Italian is still more transparent than French for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Melya68 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 4282 days ago 109 posts - 126 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 27 of 43 06 February 2014 at 2:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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If I could start over, I would study Chinese first. Right now, I'm much too old and cynical for Chinese. I *know* how much time I'd need to learn it, and since I'm looking for a job and possibly going back to college too, it just won't work.
Make your first language a good one. Spanish comes to mind because it's easy, and really useful. Try not to think of the road ahead, otherwise you will quit after a few days. When I was younger, I thought languages could be learned in a matter of weeks. I studied every language under the sun, but invariably gave up when things got tough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7229 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 28 of 43 06 February 2014 at 3:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll second the Spanish.
It's a world language you can use in many places has many common words with English (more if you went to college) doesn't have any bizarre spelling issues Gets you used to genders and inflected verbs without being ridiculous (though you may disagree at the time) Has the added bonus of being in a large language family 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4360 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 29 of 43 06 February 2014 at 5:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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More and more I'm starting to think that your first foreign language should be a "major" one. With the standard French, Spanish, German, Russian, etc., you have so many resources and it can be a bit of a surprise when you move on to lesser studied ones and find that there aren't an infinite number of resources out there that are accessible at all stages of the language learning.
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4659 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 30 of 43 06 February 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not really, speakers of Croatian understand only Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin and some Macedonian. Even Slovenian is difficult for Croatians to understand (except for 10% of Croatians who speak Slovenian-like dialects), it's like Castillian Spaniards trying to understand Catalan, the main obstacle to understanding Slovenian is totally different vocabulary. Written Russian and written Croatian are like written Portuguese and written French (different script excluded), Czech, Polish and Ukrainian are even more difficult for Croatians to understand than Russian. Bulgarian could be easier to understand, were it more vowel-friendly and with less shwa's and vowel clipping. I'd say the easiest and the most beautiful-sounding Slavic language is Macedonian. It's the Italian of the Slavic group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hKpILmzlW4 The easiest of each group: Germanic: English Romance: Spanish Slavic: Macedonian Indo-Aryan: Hindi Dravidian: Telugu As for job perspective in Europe: German, French and Slovenian will be better than English, Spanish, Russian (since salaries are better in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Slovenia than in the UK, Spain or Russia). Edited by Medulin on 06 February 2014 at 6:48pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6052 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 31 of 43 06 February 2014 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry, I don't agree. For any average- or high-level job in Europe these days, you'll need English. I know because I applied and got interviewed for jobs in Germany, where fluency in English and "willingness to learn German" would suffice. Same for France: my fluent French would put me on the starting grid, but without English, it would have been "désolé, monsieur". Of course, these were internationally-oriented jobs, where my other languages and technical expertise would help. I'm not even inferring (which I could, if you read carefully what you wrote) that Slovenian is more useful job-wise in Europe than English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3979 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 32 of 43 06 February 2014 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, if you look at the number of opportunities then you're probably right, but I second the idea that if you have a job that pays the median wage you have much better quality of life in Slovenia than in the UK. And for instance for a Croatian electrician or nurse it would be much easier to learn Slovene than English. Edited by Hungringo on 06 February 2014 at 7:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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