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Easiest Germanic language to study? | ||
Tags: Germanic Languages | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| healing332 Senior Member United States Joined 5619 days ago 164 posts - 211 votes  | Message 9 of 28 14 August 2009 at 4:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
I totally disagree..If you are interested in Romanian and really love the language you are going to do everything in your power to learn it. Most Americans fail Spanish in school or pass the class but cannot speak Spanish to anyone. Spanish is not easier than Romanian for an English speaker.. "Where the desire is will be the easier" A woman from Algeria learned Russian in 10 months while locked in a Russian prison for a crime she said she did not commit during wartime. She said she was given a choice..if you want to eat in prison you had to learn Russian and she did. My point is anyone searching for the easiest anything will fail..especially languages because only the dedicated will learn a second language as an adult..Also look at Dr.Arguelles "dedication" 12 hours a day of language study! and the youtube guy Las5000 who speaks 12 languages(he never picks "so-called" easy languages) or Keith who has watched 500 hours of Asian videos! they never mention easiest anything.. grammer and syntax similarities can help the already dedicated language learner who has chosen his language based on dedication but to "pick" a language based on easy..i would question the dedication and without the dedication you are going to fail 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5903 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 10 of 28 14 August 2009 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
I do agree with you, and on that point I find that in this case the easiest would be Afrikaans, as its grammar is extremely simplified from Dutch, the only part of the grammar that is a bit hard to grasp personally I feel is the use of double negation which is something that you don't have in Dutch (perhaps borrowed from French, according to some linguists). Within Europe I would say Dutch is easier than German, if not because it doesn't have an extensive case system or grammatical gender (though it once had, as can be noticed in dialects such as Antwerps, which still uses gendered indefnite articles "ne" - masculine - and "een" - feminine - instead of just "een", the only remnant in the "standard Dutch" is the use of the definite article "het" for neuter nouns and "de" for masculine/feminine nouns) The thing you do need to get over, is the pronounciation, as that can be a bit of a challenge... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5698 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 28 15 August 2009 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't mean to derail the thread but does anyone know of something like a grammar-reader for Frisian? The expositional text can be in English, German or Dutch, just not Danish... Thank you in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| healing332 Senior Member United States Joined 5619 days ago 164 posts - 211 votes | Message 12 of 28 15 August 2009 at 3:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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None of this proves an easiest language..it is silly to call a language easiest
1. It is based on laziness which all studies show is doomed for failure 2.Motivation and dedication is the only way to learn a second language as an adult I will say it again ..the language you are most interested in will be the easiest to learn and the one you pursue with passion is the one you will learn Dr Arguelles studies 12 hours a day! that is dedication..not easiest..there is NO easiest language 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5903 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 13 of 28 15 August 2009 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes you said it before, and still I disagree, no need to reiterate it into oblivion... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6029 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 14 of 28 15 August 2009 at 6:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've studied many languages with great passion. Some are just easier for me to learn than others.
I don't love Dutch any more than Icelandic and Icelandic is much harder. I think it's a bad theory that says that no language is harder than another one to learn. Simple experience proves that it's the case. <realworld> I have two boxes...one is heavier than the other. The heavier one is harder to lift than the other...NO NO NO!!! No box is harder to lift than the other!!! It's about how much you WANT to lift the box... *blank expression* </realworld> Edited by Rhian on 15 August 2009 at 1:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Aeroflot Senior Member United States Joined 5601 days ago 102 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 15 of 28 15 August 2009 at 6:39am | IP Logged | |||||
You know, you're exactly right. This is the reason why everyone thinks Spanish is easier than German, but I breezed through German and for me Spanish was a sandtrap. There just wasn't any motivation--no love--to allow the Spanish in. To use an analogy, I was closing off Spanish as if I was closing myself off from friends. A 'hard' language only exists if your views on language learning are switched to thinking in those terms, but if you just allow the language to seep in without worrying so much about comparative grammar and phonetics, then it should be easy no matter which language you're learning. Khatsumoto off of AJATT says something similar I think, about how many Westerners just over analyse their learning and never get down to "just doing it". I guess I take back everything I said in my first post. Edited by Aeroflot on 15 August 2009 at 6:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5908 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 16 of 28 15 August 2009 at 11:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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Aeroflot and healing have some good points (though, healing mate, you might want to take it down a notch tone-wise so you don't put people off agreeing with you), and I don't personally think the distinction 'easy' vs 'difficult' makes that much sense. Nobody told me when I was studying Hungarian that it was notorious for being difficult as heck, and since I just wanted to learn it I just started studying and didn't find it difficult. Lots of concepts were new and a little weird, but nevermind, I figured out how they worked anyway because I was interested. (I should note that my level of Hungarian isn't as advanced as I would like yet, so I'm by no means an expert on the language, and I don't know everything. Maybe all those difficult things I have since been promised would have come round later in my studies, who knows, but somehow I don't think it would've gotten that much worse.) I would likely struggle a bit with French, despite knowing a fair bit of Spanish and Catalan and studying Italian now (I wouldn't start French until 'after' Italian anyway) because I am simply not motivated for French... Fact of life. Would French be 'easier' for me? No way.
Some languages will take more time and effort to get your head around. I think very few people would argue that Japanese and Italian would be equal in the amount of work needed for a French speaker to learn. Complex and time-consuming are very different issues than labelling something as difficult in your mind. The former two just mean it takes work, the latter means uncertainty about your own capacity to do it. I'm of the opinion that anyone can learn any language they want if they just put in the right amount of work. The word 'difficult' doesn't benefit a learner during ANY part of the learning process. To the OP, do a bit of research to find out which of the languages truly grabs you. People have different feelings about these languages so you will probably find that when you start looking into them a bit more one or two will sound better or look more interesting to YOU than the others, or you could just fall in love... (It happens!) Go with whichever one you're most interested in - then it won't matter so much if it's 'easy' or 'difficult'. All of them will take work, but you will enjoy learning it more and will get further in your studies if you go with the one that interests YOU. Liz 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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