Easiest Germanic language to study? (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Easiest Germanic language to study?
Tags: Germanic Languages \| Difficulty
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28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Aeroflot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5601 days ago
102 posts - 115 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French

Message 25 of 28

16 August 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

To extend the analogy:

One box contains 5kg of spinach, the other 10kg of cakes. Does 10kg become easier to lift than 5kg just because the contents are more appealing?

No, it is still objectively, measurably, provably more difficult.

But you are more likely to make a two-mile walk with the cakes than the spinach because of motivation. The existence of motivation doesn't make the difficult easy, it only makes it achievable.

You are right that motivation allows a language to be more achievable, however I think the analogy isn't accurate. Weight is something that doesn't change on earth, because it's set--it's objective. Language is totally subjective.

Though I agree with you to a point, I'm having a hard time accepting that there's a such thing as a more complicated language.

Language is merely a tool to express yourself. As we should all know already, not all people think the same. Language is dependent on how one person thinks. This is why you can go speak Japanese using the same words and rationale as English, but the Japanese won't understand you because they don't use the same words in certain contexts.

There are expressions in Russian that have to do with ducks that my grandmother says in English and I don't get the relation between ducks and people. Why don't I understand since it's in English? Because there are different associations in English with ducks.

Furthermore, there are particles like 'wa' in Japanese that indicate the subject, whereas in European language it is found out by context and/or order of placement in the sentence. If I was Japanese I'd be like "why don't the English use wa to indicate the subject?" English speakers would be like "wtf, why do we have to add all these silly particles? This is too complex." But the Japanese think in terms of particles. It's not complex--it's different.

One cannot open up a two grammar books, one on Japanese and the other on French, and compare the complexity by counting pages. The French book might be thinner, but that means there might be many implied meanings within the words that only Europeans would understand.

Different people grasp life differently and use different tools to do so. It's just a different system. Romantic languages use prepositions, Slavik lacks prepostions, and Altaic and uses an agglutinative system. For the native speakers, these languages are not difficult, it's that their way of growing up was influenced by their parents and reflected in the language spoken. People have created languages, not the other way around. You wouldn't say that the Hungarians are smarter than the French because the language is 'more complicated', now would you? No, their language is just different and is a reflection of how these people have developed.

My point is that there's no such thing as a more complex language. You can look into the grammar book and think, "well this article goes here if preposition A is a prefix of the direct object in a compound sentence", but that 'complexity' is just another system of expressing thoughts. When it comes down to it, languages are just thoughts. People don't just develope complex language for the heck of it; the languages developed through the process of thoughts, the order of thoughts--the way in which people can grap thoughts and manipulate them.

Thanks for bearing with me. I have a hard time expressing my thoughts sometimes.

Edited by Aeroflot on 16 August 2009 at 4:33pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

healing332
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5619 days ago
164 posts - 211 votes

Message 26 of 28

17 August 2009 at 8:23pm | IP Logged

Aeroflot wrote:

My point is that there's no such thing as a more complex language. You can look into the grammar book and think, "well this article goes here if preposition A is a prefix of the direct object in a compound sentence", but that 'complexity' is just another system of expressing thoughts. When it comes down to it, languages are just thoughts. People don't just develope complex language for the heck of it; the languages developed through the process of thoughts, the order of thoughts--the way in which people can grap thoughts and manipulate them.

Thanks for bearing with me. I have a hard time expressing my thoughts sometimes.

I agree with this ..and i do believe looking for an "Easy" language( i do not believe any easy language exist) is a sure way to fail..imagine choosing an "easy" language then failing..you will assume you are no good at languages. I believe the strong desire..or dare i say "love" of the language must be there
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 27 of 28

18 August 2009 at 1:10am | IP Logged

healing332 wrote:

Aeroflot wrote:

My point is that there's no such thing as a more complex language. You can look into
the grammar book and think, "well this article goes here if preposition A is a prefix
of the direct object in a compound sentence", but that 'complexity' is just another
system of expressing thoughts. When it comes down to it, languages are just thoughts.
People don't just develope complex language for the heck of it; the languages developed
through the process of thoughts, the order of thoughts--the way in which people can
grap thoughts and manipulate them.

Thanks for bearing with me. I have a hard time expressing my thoughts
sometimes.

I agree with this ..and i do believe looking for an "Easy" language( i do not believe
any easy language exist) is a sure way to fail..imagine choosing an "easy" language
then failing..you will assume you are no good at languages. I believe the strong
desire..or dare i say "love" of the language must be there

Not necessarily... I hated French when I was younger, still managed to learn it...
granted not an easy language by my standards, I tend to always mess up grammatical
gender (in any language).

I don't have a particular love for Esperanto (at least, definitely not to the extend
that the Esperanto Movement has and raves on about it) but managed to learn it within
less than a month to a certain degree of fluency cause it's so damn easy... (for a
native Romance or Germanic speaker that is)

Not really have any love for Afrikaans, but I learned the specific grammar, spelling,
pronounciation and the localized vocabulary... well just because... now that was
easy... (I know I know, I'm native Dutch speaker, but still that's my point: some
languages are easier than others within a specific context that doesn't necessarily
have anything to do with loving or liking it)
1 person has voted this message useful

pmiller
Account terminated
Groupie
Canada
Joined 5673 days ago
99 posts - 104 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 28 of 28

18 August 2009 at 3:32am | IP Logged

Aeroflot wrote:

Yeah I was under the impression that the Swedish tonal system wasn't very difficult as long as you can pick up the rhythm pattern, which luckily is quite pronounced. Just pretend you're Inge from Sweden with Swedish meatballs and it shouldn't be too hard.

HA! I just watched that movie (Trading Places) again recently - you gotta love it!

1 person has voted this message useful

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