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What ’easy’ language do you find hard?

  Tags: Difficulty
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
134 messages over 17 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 13 ... 16 17 Next >>
hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4969 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 97 of 134
26 May 2014 at 7:15am | IP Logged 
1e4e6 wrote:
Well Mandarin actually is not very difficult
...
I started French and Mandarin at age 13, and my perception is that Mandarin was easier
than French.
...
But until intermediate/high-intermediate, it really did not seem as difficult as others
purport it to be. When I studied it, I could pronounce Mandarin with more flow and ease
than French...

And yet I notice you don't have Mandarin listed in your spoken languages, but you have
listed French. There must be a reason for that, right?

From my perspective, I studied Turkish - another language many deem to be easy -
solidly for three years before I decided to take the B2 level exams. It still took me
another year to move it from "Studying" to "Speaks" here on HTLAL, even after having
passed the exams. It's taken me that long to really consider that I can speak it with
relative ease.

I can't speak for Mandarin, but I can certainly say that once you get at or above a
high intermediate level in Turkish, it's far from easy.

I think that the level of ease in learning any language is relative. I think if you are
consistent in studying and getting exposure, an A2 or B1 level (even B2) is quite
doable in any language, regardless of how difficult it's perceived to be.

R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful



1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4129 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 98 of 134
26 May 2014 at 7:43am | IP Logged 
I do not list Mandarin not because it is so difficult, but because I lost interest to
study it further beyond classes. The last time that I actively studied it was 2007, so
there really is no way that I can list it since I do not do anything with the language
anymore, whilst continuing French on and off thereafter. But had I continued, I am sure
that I would have made the same progress and I could have surpassed French with
Mandarin.

I also studied German in school, but I cannot list it because the last time that I had
a lesson or studied it was in 2004. Still Mandarin seemed easier than German as well.
Also a different topic, but I am unsure if this is taste or not, but to me, cases seem
to make the language more logical and freer in terms of syntax in sentences.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 26 May 2014 at 7:54am

1 person has voted this message useful



Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4507 days ago

1199 posts - 2192 votes 
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali

 
 Message 99 of 134
26 May 2014 at 12:14pm | IP Logged 
Can you find the name of a song you hear for the first time on a Chinese radio just by writing its lyrics down and googling them?
I think not! This is what makes Chinese extremely difficult.

I managed to find a Tamil song just by Googling its lyrics as I listened to it on a Tamil radio.

Chinese TV even requires compulsory subtitling of all Mandarin TV programs,
this is never done in Vietnam, Laos or Germany,
this means: Mandarin is difficult even for the native speakers,
let alone for non-native speakers.

I've never heard foreigners speak Mandarin in the allegro-style,
all of them who (claim to) speak it, speak it extremely slowly and chopped.
There are things like connected speech in Mandarin too.
Foreigners speak Mandarin as if they were robots whose battery is dying.

And don't get me started on the writing system.
There are people studying Mandarin for more than 10 years,
and they still cannot read a contemporary Chinese novel in Mandarin,
[unless it is in a digital form, when they rely heavily on Perapera, MDBG, Nciku, Pleco and Google Translate]


I find Tamil much easier than Mandarin since its structure is close to my native language (Croatian):
it's a heavily inflected null-subject language.

I like Mandarin, but easy it is not!

Edited by Medulin on 26 May 2014 at 12:30pm

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hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 4969 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 100 of 134
26 May 2014 at 4:19pm | IP Logged 
1e4e6 wrote:
... But had I continued, I am sure
that I would have made the same progress and I could have surpassed French with
Mandarin.

The point I was trying to make with my response was that unless we actually reach
"speaking" level in a language, it's pretty pointless to consider whether it's easier
or more difficult than any other language.

There's a lot of consideration given to how difficult (or not) a language's grammar is
here on HTLAL when, in reality, it's such a small part of what makes a language a
language.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 26 May 2014 at 4:24pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6995 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 101 of 134
26 May 2014 at 4:50pm | IP Logged 
Gallo1801 wrote:
So I've been on and off studying French for some time, and it's just way harder for me
that it should be. I am fluent in Spanish and have travelled in Italy without knowing
Italian, and spoken portunyol w/ Brazilians, but for whatever reason, French just isn't
as easy for me to use or understand. I think the double whammy of it's orthography being
less clear and the phonetics being vastly different from the other romance family members
is the main reason.

What 'easy' language have you found to be hard after trying to study it?


It's hard for me to say since my experience with "easy languages" pales in comparison to that with "hard languages" :-P
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4546 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 102 of 134
26 May 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged 
hrhenry wrote:
1e4e6 wrote:
... But had I continued, I am sure
that I would have made the same progress and I could have surpassed French with
Mandarin.

The point I was trying to make with my response was that unless we actually reach
"speaking" level in a language, it's pretty pointless to consider whether it's easier
or more difficult than any other language.

There's a lot of consideration given to how difficult (or not) a language's grammar is
here on HTLAL when, in reality, it's such a small part of what makes a language a
language.

R.
==


I find my attraction to the culture a much bigger part of the picture.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Stolan
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3871 days ago

274 posts - 368 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots
Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese

 
 Message 103 of 134
26 May 2014 at 6:08pm | IP Logged 
Medulin wrote:
Can you find the name of a song you hear for the first time on a Chinese radio just by writing its
lyrics down and googling them?
I think not! This is what makes Chinese extremely difficult.

I managed to find a Tamil song just by Googling its lyrics as I listened to it on a Tamil radio.

Chinese TV even requires compulsory subtitling of all Mandarin TV programs,
this is never done in Vietnam, Laos or Germany,
this means: Mandarin is difficult even for the native speakers,
let alone for non-native speakers.

I've never heard foreigners speak Mandarin in the allegro-style,
all of them who (claim to) speak it, speak it extremely slowly and chopped.
There are things like connected speech in Mandarin too.
Foreigners speak Mandarin as if they were robots whose battery is dying.

And don't get me started on the writing system.
There are people studying Mandarin for more than 10 years,
and they still cannot read a contemporary Chinese novel in Mandarin,
[unless it is in a digital form, when they rely heavily on Perapera, MDBG, Nciku, Pleco and Google Translate]


I find Tamil much easier than Mandarin since its structure is close to my native language (Croatian):
it's a heavily inflected null-subject language.

I like Mandarin, but easy it is not!


And do you know how Chinese people sound when they speak English? Tones are a dimension like nasalization,
palatalization, and vowel length. People are stupid enough to treat it differently, Mandarin is the least conservative
dialect of Chinese aside from some foreign influenced varieties.

It has a simple syllable structure, small vowel inventory, and very few phonological processes in word derivation,
even on a derivational level aside from a few tone changes over time in compound words. A word like "exist"
changes the syllables a bit when suffixed with "-ing" from "e-xist" to "e-xi-sting", barely if no processes occur such
as mutations, vowel reduction, or voicing alternations occur at all in Mandarin (and most isolating languages except
for some relatives of Cambodian where derivational morphology hasn't turned to dirt) actually, derivational
morphology may be practically nonexistent. It's all compound words with no changes.

The writing system is an artificial overlay over a language, I would rather discuss actual features such as grammar
and phonology.

The primary reason for the terrible state of linguistics, namely to area of complexity as a variable feature, is
absolutely the fault of people who are stuck learning within a 18th century mindset of only IE languages like so
many. (You know who you are)

Too many people are talking about the subjunctive ONLY and absence of gender in English making it the best lingua
franca because all languages except English have gender and adjective agreement and it is a well know fact that
conjugation is the only way tense and aspect can be expressed at all, and how French is far more deep and complex
than English in every way allowing a better expression of philosophy etc etc,

AND I'm here comparing Chickasaw and Alabama while looking into Caucasian mountain languages, and noticing
the decline of derivational methods in modern Cambodian while some other relatives still have productive methods
of forming causatives etc etc and knowing that the exoticness of features in languages are relative and it is all a
continuous ocean of mutations with so many permutations occurring in different combinations and not letting
perceived difficulty getting the better of me.

It's all in the head like those people who claim to not drink wine because it gives them headaches and alcohol is bad
yet they don't flinch when they down gallons of Sangria without knowing how much wine is in it! I actually love
looking through a whole language and finding out how things are expressed with or without inflection.

Edited by Stolan on 26 May 2014 at 6:38pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Medulin
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Croatia
Joined 4507 days ago

1199 posts - 2192 votes 
Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali

 
 Message 104 of 134
26 May 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged 
Stolan wrote:
barely if no processes occur such
as mutations, vowel reduction, or voicing alternations occur at all in Mandarin


They occur in Beijing Mandarin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect

In Beijing, people don't normally talk with some contrived CCTV accent,
but more often than not in Mandarin spoken with a Beijing accent.

Just like people in Florence speak Italian with a colorful Florence accent,
and do not have the illusory ''neutral'' standard accent which exists only on RAI news and in dubbed movies.

Standard Mandarin accent in Beijing is just as rare as RP is in London.
I'd say Estuary English is the new British standard accent in the making,
while diluted Beijinghua is the new CPR Mandarin standard accent in the making.

Edited by Medulin on 26 May 2014 at 6:36pm



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