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The Right Order/Easiest or Hardest first? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6720 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes  Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 21 08 February 2010 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I say go with the one you're most interested in. I tried to learn 'easy' languages for some time before I ended up chosing Hungarian. I have personal interests in the language, and that has fueled me and kept me going. If I didn't have a strong enough desire to learn it, I would have given up a long time ago (as I did with French a number of times)
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 21 08 February 2010 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, and that's the amazing part about it! I think the main question is under what circumstances one learns the languages, about one's goals and personality. If, once you decide which language to learn first, you actually have to follow through, for example because your school system will make you take classes in this language for 8+ years, because you are learning it in the military or because your job requires you to move to that country after a short while, I think choosing the 'more difficult' language might beneficial for some people. But if your study mainly depends on your own motivation it would probably be much more successful to pick a comparatively easier language first to learn that you can reach fluency in a second language, and only after that experience begin to learn languages that are a bigger challenge for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6704 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 12 of 21 08 February 2010 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Here's a case where speaking in generalized terms misses the point. There are some people that are drawn to study one of the harder foreign languages, even though they have thought about learning easier languages, for whatever reason. I am one of those--Chinese was the first language that I learned to a high level. It took me years, and I made many mistakes while learning the language, but I've achieved a pretty good level. When I deal with learning West European languages now, I can't get over how easy they are in comparison. Even Russian, with all of its declensions and perfective verbs seems easier because it has an alphabet. I'm not saying that starting with the hardest language is the best idea--if the OP really wants to learn a number of languages, it would make more sense to start with an easier one. However, Quabazaa's point is valid, even if it points to a longer path. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6620 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 13 of 21 08 February 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If your goal is simply basic communication with other people in a relatively short time frame, you could start with the easiest language.
But I wouldn't go so far as to compare a hard language with climbing Mt. Everest. If you use an inefficient study method on a hard language, the worst is that you end up adding a few extra months to your language learning program. And if you're interested in languages, a hard language might very well be more interesting to study than an easy language like Spanish. And with moral support from other language learners on this bulletin board, you can always find a different route to the top if you get stuck in the middle. Whereas with Mt. Everest, there isn't really much room for error. Edited by skeeterses on 08 February 2010 at 11:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| unityandoutside Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6016 days ago 94 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin, Mandarin | Message 14 of 21 08 February 2010 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
I totally agree with this. The first foreign language I learned to a high level was Russian, a "hard" language. There are many challenges in learning a language, but the problems that vary from one language to another are the very smallest ones. The biggest beasts to slay are the motivational ones. Spanish is difficult if you don't like it, as the experience of many American high school students attests. And since you've found this forum, I wouldn't concern myself too much with worrying that you'll use ineffective techniques because due to lack of experience. Every part of this forum is full of wonderful advice from experienced learners. If you make a habit of browsing here, you'll be leagues ahead of the crowd. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 21 09 February 2010 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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If your heart is with a certain language then study that one. Else study the easier one first - and remember that 'easy' isn't just a question of morphology or spelling, but also of the amount and quality of study materials.
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| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6044 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 16 of 21 09 February 2010 at 12:48am | IP Logged | |||||
I disagree. I think that learning the grammar of your own native language is even better. Here in Australia most people don't even know what a noun is. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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