|
 |
My language is the most difficult | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 67 10 August 2005 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
|
I read some discussions about the 'Difficulty' rating of languages on this website. Although it is clearly open to discussion, it seems that the most common complaint I get is that native speakers of a language (English, Spanish) would always complain that my rating underestimates the real difficulty of their language.
There must be some psychological mechanism at play here, and it plays on me too probably since I wrote in a page that French is the most difficult of Romance languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7145 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 2 of 67 10 August 2005 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
|
While we are the subject of our own language, it never ceases to amaze me how little the English know about their own language - and I'm sure other nationalities are equally bad in this respect.
I know many English people who don't even know how many tenses their language has, or how to form grammatical sentences, or how to spell correctly. It may be argued that as they are native speakers they don't need to know these things, but I disagree with this totally. It's been said that once you know one foreign language the next one is that much easier. I think this is largely true. However, it doesn't need to be a foreign language. A thorough knowledge of the workings of your own language would give you a headstart learning the foreign language of your choice - especially if it is in the same family. Lets say a little boy in England begins to speak and use his language at the age of two. As he grows up, he will think, speak, read, write and listen to this language for something like 16 hours a day. So, by the time he is 20 years old he will have been exposed to 105,120 hours of English. You'd think, wouldn't you, after that much exposure the person would have learned how to spell and write good grammatical senses. What on earth do we do with our time? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7205 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 67 10 August 2005 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||
First, I think the charts you've done in the languages related to ..... are very cool; but I sometimes ponder a bit to understand them. For instance, on This page under Latin shows 4 cacti of difficulty. The description of difficulty at the bottom of the page says this is for a speaker of English. On the Italian page, Italian page still has four cacti of difficulty. It surprises me that an Italian speaker would find Latin grammar just as difficult as an English speaker. On the first page mentioned there is also a transparency rating. I've read many of the transparency ratings within the language profiles, and they are interesting. However, I don't quite understand the rating on that first page. Perhaps a sentence of explanation would be helpful. As for your original question. I think the perceived difficulty of foreign languages by Americans is related to: 1) The US is geographically huge, and until the last 10 years or so, a second language wasn't nearly as practical as in say Europe, where their are many tongues spoken in a much smaller area. So experience in foreign languages is more limited. The U in U.S. also brings commonality on a couple levels. a) No difficulty crossing interstate borders b) An American generally thinks of Boston, Alabama, North Dakota, "the valley" in California, and Afro-American vernacular as being accents, not even different dialects. They do share a common orthography, so perhaps that's totally expected. 2) Forty or more years ago, one would have had several years of English grammar starting in grade school. I don't think that's true any more. Not knowing grammar may make it harder for some students. 3) Historically, immigrants to the US picked up English and didn't pass much of their heritage tongue to their children. Now, the sheer number of first generation immigrants is so much higher than in the past, "foreign" tongues are more common. From overhearing conversations at the library, etc, it's not clear that immigrant families are trying to drop their heritage tongue. So background, culture, motivation, education are all factors making most Americans monolingual. I'd compare learning a foreign language to learning a musical instrument. The first instrument requires many hours of practice to become proficient. Second, and related instruments are easier to learn. In the case of the monolingual, one has climbed the first mountain and set up house. Edited by administrator on 10 August 2005 at 7:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 67 10 August 2005 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
Thank you for your answers!
Latin remains as difficult a language for an Italian as for an Englishman, since the main difficulty is not really vocabulary (both languages draw heavily from Latin and there are tons of cognates) but the complexity of the grammar, which does not really survive in Italian. Conjugation might deserve a one star difference in my opinion. I am not sure the reasoning between the fact that Americans are monolingual and why they should perceive English as more difficult than I say. Actually I did not mean only Americans, I also got the same from Spaniards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Shusaku Senior Member United States Joined 7100 days ago 145 posts - 157 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese | Message 5 of 67 10 August 2005 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||
|
As a native English speaker, I'm not really in a position to say how difficult it is to learn, but my gut feeling is that English is indeed one of the easier languages. Due to its status as an international language, it's easy to expose yourself to English no matter where you are via the internet, movies, etc. Learning materials are easy to find, and nobody will ever question your reasons for learning the language. Plus, English speakers tend to have a very high tolerance for mistakes among non-native speakers due to the fact that we have so much experience listening to different accents. English grammar also seems relatively easy when compared to other European languages, the biggest challenge being the irregularities.
Also, many non-native speakers have told me that English was the easiest language that they learned. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 7145 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 6 of 67 10 August 2005 at 8:32am | IP Logged | ||
|
I think English must the easiest language to speak badly.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vincenthychow Tetraglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 7104 days ago 136 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English, GermanB1, Japanese Studies: French | Message 7 of 67 10 August 2005 at 8:51am | IP Logged | ||
|
I agree with Shasuka. English is not that difficult to learn because we are always in the position of getting in touch with English. Also, native English speakers are always forgiving.
On daily and informal speak and writing, English users is generally not demanding. Eventough one write English have much grammar mistake or even spell mistakes. Peoples tend to torlerates it as long as they is understoodable. (I hopes Mr. Webmaster not get angry when he is read this) But, writing a paragraph in some languages, say French, with as many mistakes as the previous one would be totally unacceptable. Edited by vincenthychow on 10 August 2005 at 8:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| morprussell Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7163 days ago 272 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 8 of 67 10 August 2005 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
Agreed. When I look at English (my native language), it looks quite easy to learn the basics. Yet learning to speak it properly appears much more difficult. These factors would make it an easy languge to speak poorly. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
