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Are some languages better to learn first? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7147 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 33 of 43 06 February 2014 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Basically what lichtrausch posted about motivation applies. I'd add that it's quite simplistic to look for "magic bullets" or "key languages" since it fails to consider what happens when the learner doesn't approach lanaguage-learning looking for such things. When I embarked on what has turned out to be an indefinite love affair with Slavonic languages, I started with Polish because it suited my personal situation and never did it occur that I "should have" started with Russian just because the latter on average has the largest presence among the Slavonic languages. I've sometimes seen the argument bandied about that one really should give a lot of thought about the amount of resources available but even then this is rather vague. How many resources is enough? How big of a disapora does one need? It's one thing to be ultimately discouraged when trying to learn something like Kashubian which has practically no learning material (or at least I haven't seen anything worth using while visiting Poland) or disapora, but when it comes to say choosing between Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian or BCMS/SC, then what? How much choice among English-Russian / Russian-English dictionaries do I need? Is it fatal that there's no graded reader of Slovak similar to what I can find for Russian? Should I throw my hands up in the air because trying to find a community of native speakers of Bulgarian in my hometown is like pulling teeth compared to trying to do the same for Russian? (or even Polish?). 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 34 of 43 06 February 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm sorry (again), but the original contention did not concern "Croatian electricians or nurses". 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 35 of 43 06 February 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
That post was written by a Croat and it goes without saying that for a Croatian person regardless of their profession looking for a job in Slovenia makes more sense than going to Spain or Russia or even the UK. Many people tend to overestimate the importance and reach of English. Granted, English is the lingua franca and it facilitates international communication and very useful when traveling. However, unless you have a job where English is actually needed (perhaps 10-15 per cent of Europeans) you can just live fine without English. Again with the exception of 10-15 per cent of globally oriented jobs, in Hungary a good command of German and the neighbouring countries' languages are more on demand than English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4245 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 36 of 43 06 February 2014 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think it depends a lot on your personal goals and learning methods, personally I went the opposite way in two different language families I'm studying, and although it's too early for me to say what the end results will be like, I've been quite happy with my choices so far. With Chinese languages, I really really wanted to learn Cantonese, and kind of sort of was interested in Mandarin. I started with Cantonese and found I have to spend a lot more time and energy searching for and modifying resources because there are very few perfectly well made ones available. So far I've never regretted this decision and I've always delighted in my Cantonese study no matter how slowly it progresses forward. I've got enough motivation that I'm going to find a way to learn the language no matter how long it takes. But this made me realize that I didn't want to do the same thing for another language until I brought my Cantonese to a suitable level. I also had interest in learning some Slavic languages, primarily Czech and Russian, and I was slightly leaning towards Czech. But when I started seeing all the really great resources available for Russian I decided to go with that instead, and so far I've really enjoyed being able to study a challenging language with lots of wonderfully made materials already available for it. This only made sense because I really wanted to learn Russian as well. Despite a slightly greater interest in Czech, the resources ended up being the deciding factor for me. Now personally if I wanted to ever pick up a new language from a language family that was totally new to me, I would always start with one that I was interested in that had an Assimil and FSI because I've found those two resources help me learn the fastest and easiest with my learning style. But of course I would never study a language I had no interest in just because it had better materials. And on the flip side of the coin, I would only study a language with minimal materials available if I had enough motivation that I wouldn't mind spending time tracking down and modifying rare materials. It's hard to simplify but I think when you know what methods for learning a language work for you, you can make an educated decision about which language to learn first, if you're already planning to learn a whole related group. But of course you don't need to do so, and not everyone does. 2 persons have 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 37 of 43 06 February 2014 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I said Slavic languages seem closer to each other than Romance or Germanic
languages, I wasn't speaking of prior understanding, but of understanding after some basic study. I couldn' understand any other Romance languages besides Spanish until I studied quite some French and a little Italian. I still can't understand Romanian. In the case of Slavic languages, they seem to be a more consistent continuum. Anyway, I can't speak for myself, I heard them from an experienced polyglot. Besides, there are more 'big' Slavic languages than Romance ones. 2 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 38 of 43 06 February 2014 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@ Hungringo:
Since you kept this at a civilised level, I think you deserve this explanation from my side: - Medulin is a member of this community whose posts I usually like; - this time, among other things, he stated (if I've read it well) that, in European terms, Slovenian is more useful than English; - there were no further restrictions, whether in terms of countries, regions, job requirements, or other; - I disagreed with that particular generic statement; - I gather he's very probably Croatian (lives in Croatia, speaks Croatian natively...); - I also know there are many different realities in Europe (I live in just one); - I don't disagree with your ulterior statements, but I think they're besides the point (well, my point, at least); - I never disputed that a manual labourer from Croatia wanting to work abroad could profit more from knowing Slovenian than English; - in my (European) country, there's also millions of people living their lives without speaking English. I think you deserved that much from my side on this subject. 4 persons have 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 39 of 43 06 February 2014 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Don't worry, Luso. After all, we basically seem to agree even if we see things from different angles. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 40 of 43 06 February 2014 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the mutual intelligibility of Slavic languages, both after some study or between natives and so on, is a common myth. It is based on the general public in the romance/germanic part of Europe + the american continent. Really. Most of these can tell a German from someone from Scandinavia when they hear tourists in their city, even though they aren't likely to distinguish Swedish from Norwegian. However, most think we are all Russians or even Hungarians, even though some discovered the existence of Polish during the last few years :-) . It's nearly like the general trouble of distinguishing people from various asian countries from each other by appearance (even though there are difference people learn to notice by exposure) So, Medulin gave a nice exemple and I'll add mine for illustration of someone from another branch of slavic languages: -I can understand much better Italian or Catalan, thanks to my learnt romance languages, than most Slavic languages. -I can understand nearly perfectly Slovak. The language is very similar but a large amount of exposure has been an important factor. Czech children nowadays have trouble understanding Slovak, until they grow up and go to university where approximately one quarter/one third of their classmates is likely to be from Slovakia. -I can get the gist of Polish, Croatian, Ukrainian and Russian. Even though there is a gap between the understanding of Polish/Croatian and Ukrainian/Russian. -I cannot tell the southern slavic languages apart. Due to the fact I've been exposed to Croatian the most, and even that means really a little, I'll assume the speakers I understand the best speak Croatians and the others the rest of the southern Slavic languages. -I can get what is being talked about in Ukrainian or Russian but it isn't that easy due to the different prosody and way to "handle the vowels" and so on. In some settings, when I am not pressed, I can hear well (for example at a friend's home vs. public transport) and so on, I can understand a bit better but details are usually still away from my reach. I can understand approximately what is a text about once I chew through the cyrillics which takes me ages because I've only learnt the basics. The writing is a natural barrier for slavic languages natives and learners alike, I'd say. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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