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Eastern language for reading? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| bystander87 Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4216 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Russian*, English | Message 1 of 20 30 April 2013 at 3:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello.
A little introduction at first. I'm Russian. I've learned English on my own to read books and listen to audio media. English for me is sheer joy, and many of the best literary experiences in my life are from English literature. Foreign languages have nothing to do with my profession or social environment. I read fluently, understand speech without effort, can talk if necessary. Now, when I'm happy with my English, I want to learn another language. Primary motive is reading (and listening), possible practical benefits are secondary. I want to choose a language, that will give me distinctly different experience, both from my native Russian, and from English. I'm going to try Korean, Japanese, or Mandarin Chinese. It's unlikely that learning one of these will be of any practical use to me. I'm interested in language itself and literature. I would appreciate some thoughts and advices on which of these languages to choose, and may be some impressions about modern literature of these countries, both fiction and non-fiction. Since these languages are very difficult I, of course, don't expect the same level of success as with English. Thanks in advance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4658 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 2 of 20 30 April 2013 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Japanese: difficult writing system + difficult grammar
Mandarin: difficult writing system + easy grammar Korean: (relatively) easy writing system + difficult grammar I had the same wanderlust you have now, and I chose Mandarin. Edited by Medulin on 30 April 2013 at 2:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 20 30 April 2013 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do you have any specific interest in these Oriental cultures? You don't have to go so far to get a different experience. Finnish is also very different, for example, and so are many of the languages spoken in Russia.
All three languages require a lot of passion and dedication, simple curiosity can't take you very far. Not to discourage you too much but even those who aren't sure whether to learn Spanish or French often simply don't have enough interest in either of them and don't succeed. Also, with your interest in reading, why not try a dead language? That's another dimension of "different", and in this case there will be more courses aimed specifically for reading/passive sskills. (but Classical Chinese is impossible to learn without doing a modern kind of it first, afaiu) Um, you do know that Korean uses an alphabet, right? :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4658 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 4 of 20 30 April 2013 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
You only don't succeed if/when you give up. In languages, as in love, passion doesn't last long. I quit Tamil so many times, but I always end up going back to it. Yes, diglossia is overwhelming to the degree of being unbearable, but I feel sad every time I quit Tamil. I miss Tamil songs, I miss learning new quirky words spelled with that gorgeous curvy alphabet. (There are so many married people that don't divorce, even though there is no passion, only strong friendship and respect, but they would be so sad if they split). Edited by Medulin on 30 April 2013 at 2:45pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| bystander87 Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4216 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Russian*, English | Message 5 of 20 01 May 2013 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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There are many reasons for choosing Oriental language.
No European language attracts me very much, though I like how Swedish sounds. I don't have specific interest in any of them and I'm afraid, that European language will interfere with English because they have the same symbol system and lexical relation. I didn't study English in any sense. I just tried to use it to understand the material and tried to create a sort of artificial environment, and expose my mental resources to it, i.e. I was very active consciously but strongly relied on automatic cognitive response. I'm afraid that if I choose European language, all files will go to English pool, so to speak, and since I don't have any orderly academic method or way of dealing with language, it will result in confusion. Besides, all things I'm interested in are in English. Any of suggested languages is absolutely different in any aspect from Russian and English, different symbols, different grammar, different phonetics. There's no risk of confusion. Asia is an interesting region, a lot of stuff going on, ancient cultures exposed to relatively abrupt and rapid modernization. Good chance that I can find some subject to burrow. I asked specifically about literature, because that's what I like the most. I started to learn English, because I've stumbled on a book, though I had a vague idea of learning it before. Also, I have a specific question about pronunciation and sounds in these three languages. Which it will be easier to understand? I mean, which have a less subtle tone system? Edited by bystander87 on 01 May 2013 at 5:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5950 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 20 01 May 2013 at 4:41am | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion, Japanese has a richer modern literature than Chinese and Korean. I suspect
this is because for the past 150 years, Japan has always been a couple steps ahead of its neighbors in terms of development, and has therefore enjoyed widespread literacy and a strong appetite for literature. If you become proficient in Japanese, you will not be disappointed by the quality and vastness of Japanese literature. I am certainly satisfied. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4762 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 7 of 20 01 May 2013 at 11:23am | IP Logged | ||
If you're wondering about the relative difficulty of grammar and pronunciation, this blog post may give you a good idea regarding Chinese and Japanese. For Korean my guess is that its difficulty of pronunciation is somewhere between Japanese and Chinese both in the beginning and at the end. While (standard) Korean has neither syllabic tone nor pitch accent, its phoneme inventory is larger than that of Japanese and even advanced learners of Korean complain about difficulty in distinguishing its sounds (there's a whole thread here about this). Korean grammar is very similar to Japanese, but with a lot more variation and exceptions, so its learning curve is probably similar to that of Japanese in shape, only higher on the graph. The Korean writing system is, as has been mentioned above, simpler than both, although a rather well-known polyglot insists that knowledge of Hanja (Chinese characters as used in Korean) is essential "to make any progress in vocabulary acqusition beyond the beginner's level".
Edited by vonPeterhof on 01 May 2013 at 11:25am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 20 01 May 2013 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
A lot of people learn languages by having fun, and this doesn't mean they're doomed! I'm learning my Romance languages by having fun and I don't think the method matters much (apart from heavily translation-based methods maybe - if you translatetranslatetranslate, switching between languages is harder than while simply thinking/speaking/understanding). You can totally learn Swedish the same way as you learned English, btw. Just saying. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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