|
 |
Ranking the "Medium Hard" Languages | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4032 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 41 of 62 12 January 2014 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You can make anything sound complicated by listing each thing out and out. I hear Russian verbs are very hard, I don't know why though, is there something there that separates it from something like Portuguese? In fact, I keep on reading on this forum and by guys such as McWhorter how awfully hard Russian is and how complex and frustrating it is, how in awe they are, how everything about it is one of the hardest in the world and unlearnable (McWhorter mostly), what a bear it is. But Polish has even more declensions and conjugations. All this talk of verbs of motion and aspect, and cases, have they considered that these are just unfamiliar features and the alternatives (word order, aspect auxiliaries, particle verbs) are not a cake walk either? Has anyone considered that eastern European speakers may find Western languages frustrating too? Edited by Stolan on 12 January 2014 at 1:03pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 42 of 62 12 January 2014 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Frustrating things in English: 1. articles 2. going to vs will :) 3. spelling 4. idiomatic usage Edited by Medulin on 12 January 2014 at 4:34pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 43 of 62 12 January 2014 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Empathy is hard when you've never been in that situation. But frustration is a state of mind. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| doubleUelle Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4035 days ago 67 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Thai | Message 44 of 62 12 January 2014 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, I have considered that. I've thought for a long time that the hardest language to learn is the one that's most different from what you're used to (also, what has the least resources and what you're least interested in). I found Spanish very easy because I was already fluent in French when I started learning it. But I know a Japanese guy who tried to learn Spanish, and he found it monstrously difficult. I can understand why. No clue who McWhorter is, but it sounds like he needs a new hobby. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 45 of 62 12 January 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Maybe not to a native Russian, but it definitely sounds like "harasho" to me - (with the h representing the Spanish j. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 46 of 62 12 January 2014 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Spanish j (in Spanish spoken in Spain) is an uvular sound [χ], while Russian х is a velar
sound [x]. But Russian definitely has two stages of reduction. Unstressed o and a at the beginning of a word or in the prestressed syllable are pronounced as a vowel close to the stressed a, anywhere else they are pronounced as shwa. There is no doubt. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4772 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 47 of 62 12 January 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 48 of 62 12 January 2014 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Most native speakers know nothing about phonetics and do not think of it. They all have орфография головного мозга. Many people believe for example that final consonants aren't devoiced. I remember how I was surprized when I found out the word шоколадка wasn't spelt шеколодка or шиколодка. And when native speakers hear харашо, they say it's a foreign accent. Edited by Марк on 12 January 2014 at 9:48pm 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. |
