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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6623 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 1 of 54 09 October 2006 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Comments on page "Choosing the language you want to learn"
The difficulty ranking given to languages at [http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/LA/LA/index.htm] is absolutely incorrect. It's quite obvious that the rankings have been given thru a personal standing (a certain language might be easy for certain people but not for all and when giving ranking we must think globally). And ranking must be given for both writing system and grammar. (My native language is Persian but I have acquaintance with more than 20 languages.) =-= English -=- How do you give it 2 signs? It isn't easy at all. Just consider the pronunciation. You must learn the pronunciation for almost every new word. In Spanish, German, French, and Italian it's quite easy to guess the correct pronunciation. English spelling is very complex. =-= Spanish =-= Spanish is a full-featured language. Yet it isn't so easy to have just 1 sign. In fact 1 sign only goes for Esperanto and other constructed languages. No natural language is as easy as Esperanto so that to be given 1 star. Portuguese, Spanish, etc. deserve 3 signs at least however Portuguese must be relatively harder than Spanish. =-= Persian =-= First, please stop calling it Farsi. Only say Farsi when you do say Deutsch instead of German, français instead of French etc. in English. I can't believe my eyes. 6 signs for Persian. What a joke! Persian is harder than Arabic, Japanese, Russian and Finnish. Persian has the easiest grammar among world languages. It's gender-free, no declension, regular verb system. You'll have no particular difficulty in learning Persian grammar. The hard thing is writing system (that's why I say we must consider two rankings. one for grammar and one for writing system) but it's not as hard as it seems. Persian abjad has just 32 letters whereas to master Japanese you must know more than 3000 characters (kanji) which most of them have 4 different readings (called onyumi, kunyumi). But Japanese grammar is not so hard. I know Arabic grammar as well as a native. It must be given 4 signs to Arabic, at least. Arabic and Persian use the same writing system but they are two different language. There's no grammatical relationship between the languages. Arabic is a Semitic language just like Hebrew whereas Persian is an Indo-European language just like Greek, Latin, English, French, and Russian. =-= German =-= German has noun and adjective declension because of having 4 cases, has 3 genders. So it's harder than other 3-sign languages like French.I think it must be given 4 signs. Edited by Alijsh on 10 October 2006 at 9:25am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6826 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 2 of 54 09 October 2006 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with you on most of these points. However, keep in mind that
some of these things are relative (and only one person's opinion). For example, the rankings are from a western point of view. If this website was made by a Chinese or Arabic person, then the rankings would likely be very different. English pronunciation may be hard, but that is offset by the simple grammar, abundance of learning materials, and easy exposure to the language. And of course it all depends on the person, so any raknings should always be taken with a grain of salt. I agree with the Farsi/Persian comment, and this point has been discussed in these forums. Unfortunately, this website does not get updated very often, if ever, so don't hold your breath on seeing any changes. As for Persian receiving six signs, I have a feeling that's a mistake. It should be only 3, but those three got duplicated and carried over to the next line. It is 3 under language profiles on this website. I favor, as you might, a ranking out of 10 for difficulty. That would allow for more detailed rankings. For example, Esperanto = 1 (easiest), Spanish = 3, Portuguese = 4, French = 5, German = 6, Finnish = 8, Korean = 10. Or whatever... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6623 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 3 of 54 09 October 2006 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Dear AML,
You're right. We have abundant materials for English that compensates its hardness in pronunciation. I just wanted to say that it's not as easy as being ranked. It's possible to give a neutral ranking (i.e. non-personal). You just need to be fairly acquainted with the languages you're ranking. Nevertheless, I believe assigning any kind of rank and in general, talking about difficulties has no use. No pain no gain. If you really want to learn a language you'll eventually learn it, no matter how hard or easy it is. Yes, 3 is fair for Persian. Consider culture and literature to forget difficulties. Today, thanks to Internet, learning foreign languages has become much easier. You can find native friends of the languages you're learning. You can speak thru messengers to practice your listening and speaking skills. You can exchange e-mails to practice your reading and writing skills. Such facilities are really encouraging. However, considerable and free resources is limited to a few languages but it's also temporary and I'm sure one day we'll have superior courses for any language. So let's not to pay attention to difficulties. - Good luck in all languages you're learning Edited by Alijsh on 09 October 2006 at 2:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7118 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 54 09 October 2006 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
I agree, the rankings make sense from a western point of view. I would rate Persian as more difficult than our Administrator has. Why? It shares nothing in common with English or French or German, languages the western world uses. The writing is different, the sounds are different, and I believe they write by witholding vowels. Maybe someone can verify that. Maybe Persian is not as difficult as Mandarin, but I would be confident in saying it is much more difficult than French or German for a western learner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6623 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 5 of 54 09 October 2006 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
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So difficulty is relative. Likewise, learning French, English, German etc. is very hard for a Persian speaker. So s/he likes to give such languages 5 and even more signs.
Yet, it's possible to give a neuter ranking using a comparative method. For example, comparing verb system, noun, adjective, etc. This way we can give a correct ranking. By the way, please read this post (Philological Room /What Persian shares) where I have briefly talked about what Persian shares with other IE languages in grammar. Edited by Alijsh on 09 October 2006 at 3:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6685 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 6 of 54 09 October 2006 at 4:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I think a valuable improvement to the language page would be the creation of different difficulty guides from different perspectives. As there are a wealth of non-English native learners on this site, we could certainly create new difficulty ratings for Chinese natives, Arabic natives, German natives, Russian natives, and so forth. Such guides are next-to-impossible to find online, and I've derived most of my knowledge about the difficulties of acquiring various languages from the perspective of a non-English native solely by reading the plethora of threads in the forums here.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7118 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 54 09 October 2006 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
The administrator might as well let people vote in that case. It is all subjective. I'm sure someone who speaks Mandarin will say Korean is easier than someone who speaks English. And a person who speaks Italian will probably say Spanish is easier than someone who speaks Russian. I have Serbian friends who say Russian is very easy to learn, but French is a real pain. There is an old saying "Where you stand depends a lot on where you sit". Most of it is common sense. I like to use the ratings where it shows how transparent a language is. If two languages share a lot of common works or bases, then it will be much easier. Edited by Magnum on 09 October 2006 at 5:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magnum Bilingual Triglot Retired Moderator Pro Member United States Joined 7118 days ago 359 posts - 353 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian*, French Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 54 09 October 2006 at 5:40am | IP Logged | ||
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One more thing about Persian. A good way to measure how difficult a new language is, might be to ask "how many things are brand new to me"? Is the alphabet the same, or brand new? Are the basic sounds the same, or is there something new? Is the grammar the same, or is everything new?
Persian strikes me as having many aspects which an English speaker will never have seen before. Even with Russian, most letters in the alphabet are the same, and most sounds the mouth must make are closer than if trying to say something in Persian. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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