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If I hear "Spanish is easy" ONE more time | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4550 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 97 of 137 24 August 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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Of course Spanish is an easy language; I've learnt it without any study at all...
Now that we've gotten that overused word out of the way, I do want to say that perhaps saying that one language is "easy" is... a misnomer? Not quite sure what the proper word here would be. Anyway, as far as I know, there is no such thing as a language that is "easy." Every language requires hard work if you really want to know it well (key: know it well!). Spanish is easy if you compare it to a language like Russian. On its own, learning Spanish and learning it well is not easy. It's kind of like saying that playing the saxophone is easy. It's probably easier to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the saxophone than on... I don't know, the bassoon, but that doesn't mean that improvising on the saxophone is easy. It's a relative label, and a lot of people take it as an absolute one. My own experience with a supposedly easy language, Swedish, is this - is it easier than other languages? Yes. This does not mean you're not going to have to study and review and at some times, actually think about what a sentence means. It's easier than Russian, yes. I moved faster in Swedish than I did in Russian. Doesn't mean that Swedish is easy in an absolute sense. Underestimating a language leads to not taking it seriously and that means you're going to end up speaking a very strange version of the language (for examples, see my Swedish log). Spanish is easier for an English speaker than Russian or Yoruba or Salish. This is true, and I'm not one of those people who will try to convince you that Mandarin is easier than Spanish. But too many people extend this to mean "I don't need to work hard to be proficient or fluent in Spanish" and that is just plain wrong, no matter what language you're learning. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| cmmah Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 4534 days ago 52 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Irish | Message 98 of 137 25 August 2012 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
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@outcast, you took the words from my mouth!
I find that sometimes Spanish speakers can be a bit on the lenient side when it comes to correcting me. I've spoken to a few on Skype and in Spain, and even when I've asked them to correct me if I make a mistake, they've let me away with some really bad ones (e.g. used 'maison' instead of 'casa', and had to correct myself five seconds later, while they talked on. That's what I get for studying two Romance languages at once, I suppose. I've mixed up articles and realized my own mistake about a second later, but they're happy to let that slide too). The Spanish are quite happy to hear people try to speak their language, but the French are not going to bow down to your unbelievable language skills if you mumble out a badly-accented "Bonjour, monsieur". Most French people I've spoken to, on Skype and in France/Switzerland, are quick to correct me if I mix up gender articles, or adjective gender forms. I didn't take this as 'rude' or 'expecting perfection' - I took it as a helpful correction to help me avoid making the same mistake in future. When I was in China, a waitress was quite happy to correct me as I stuttered out the order in broken Mandarin. Then again, that just might be because she didn't understand when we tried ordering in English (how I love TL monoglots!). Yes, there are easy points to learning Spanish. The pronunciation, the cognates, and the use of the word 'no' for all negatives are all easy. But some things like the subjective and distinguishing between the direct/indirect object pronouns are difficult to master. Funnily enough, nearly everybody who says that 'Spanish is easy' has either never studied it, or speaks it extremely badly. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ronsat Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5262 days ago 12 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 99 of 137 26 August 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged |
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A couple of points to add to this discussion. The difficulty of learning a language can be greatly affected by your environment. People around the world learn English more easily because they are exposed to music, TV and movies in English. English-speaking Canadians can learn French more easily than Spanish as they have exposure to French words in their environment, French on all packaging, and early exposure in school. Americans could well have an easier time with Spanish than French for similar reasons. So, to make a blanket statement that one language is easier to learn than another ignores the environmental context of the person doing the learning.
And one other comment - I have spent a great deal of time in France, and have found that the French are very tolerant of my anglo accent. They realize that I am speaking French as my 2nd language, and are nothing short of being very accepting of it. (However, the same is not true for their tolerance of native French speakers from Quebec - where they do seem to have a mysterious inability to understand the slightest variation from their own version of the language.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4671 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 100 of 137 27 August 2012 at 2:04am | IP Logged |
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No language is easy.
Why Spanish is not easy: the present tense of 40% of verbs is not predictable from the infinitive, because of that diphthong thing. Many people who say Spanish is easy make mistakes...So they say DEPIENDO instead of DEPENDO or DEFENDO instead of DEFIENDO... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4491 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 101 of 137 01 September 2012 at 7:08pm | IP Logged |
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In the Philippines, most college students would choose Spanish if faced with the decision to choose a
language elective since it's considered as the easiest foreign language to learn, for a Filipino that is. This is partly has a lot to do with the Philippines' rich Spanish heritage and copious amount of Spanish loan words in Philippine languages. Until a few decades ago, Spanish was still a compulsory subject in school. In some provinces, Chavacano or Philippine Creole Spanish is spoken as a dialect. What I'm interested in finding out is whether there are still families in the Philippines which still speak Spanish as a household language (other than recent Spanish-speaking immigrants or expatriates of course) as there were definitely some Spanish speaking households at least during my parents' time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4474 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 102 of 137 01 September 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged |
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I agree with you there. There is not "easy" or "difficult" languages. There are however languages that are be easier or more difficult for a specific person to learn.
Also, I am quite surprised with the French's reputation of being severe with foreigners speaking in less-than-perfect French. I had never heard that before but I read it quite a lot since I've started browsing language-enthusiast blogs and forums. I wonder if some of you might take someone switching to English amiss. Personnally, I will most often switch to English when speaking with someone who is not a fluent French speaker and I will almost always offer to switch to English when conversing with a native English speaker regardless of their level. That is not meant to make the person feel like crap or because I deem them unworthy of speaking French. On the contrary, it is supposed to be the polite and even thoughtfull thing to do. If you talk with someone who is struggling to communicate with you, I think it is normal to do what you can to facilitate the communication. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4571 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 103 of 137 03 September 2012 at 10:57am | IP Logged |
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I agree with everyone on the fact that Spanish speakers tend to be really lenient with my mistakes...and strangely, unlike Tsopivo, I used to get 'language snubbed' by French speakers quite often. When I say 'language snubbed', I don't mean corrected harshly or being offered a switch in language; the French speaker would take one listen to my rather stammery French, decide that I wasn't worth their time (though this may have to do with my age), and abruptly switch to English, sans explanation.
Over the years, as my French has improved, this situation started to become extinct (hooray!), but it's left me with a sort of bitter aftertaste. I think it's important to at least ask if the person you're talking to would like a switch in language, and to respect the choice of language - hey, we're all fallible, and we'd like some opportunities to practice. Back to the topic: No, Spanish is not easy, but I would feel that speaking Spanish and using it is easier, because its native speakers make it easier. I think languages are not inherently difficult or easy - it's the community in charge of said language that shapes its difficulty. The more accessible and open practising opportunities are, the easier and faster students will pick up the language. By ensuring that they are open to foreigners learning their language and by being very friendly (though sometimes at the cost of positive criticism), Spanish natives have ensured that their language will be considered easy to learn, and hence be learned by a large number of people all over the world. Note that I'm not French-bashing (or any other language bashing); there's nothing wrong with correcting foreigners harshly or anything, but I'm just trying to give a reason as to why Spanish is considered easier to learn than other supposedly less complex languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 104 of 137 03 September 2012 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
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Because there are so many Spanish speakers in the world and their territory covers a large geographical area which includes lots of individual countries, there is less pressure on them to learn a second language to any great extent. Therefore we have many native Spanish speakers who can only really function in Spanish.
If you go to Latin America armed only with basic Spanish and you step outside the tourist bubble, you will most likely encounter people whose English is no better, perhaps worse, than your knowledge of their language. You will have to use your Tarzan Spanish in certain situations to get your point across. If you speak at intermediate level, attempts from locals to communicate in English will melt away. All this adds up to a sense of satisfaction gained from using the language in real life. You start to think, hey this Spanish lark isn't so difficult after all, I can put sentences together and people understand me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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