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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7104 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes  2 sounds | Message 33 of 67 12 February 2006 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
From my experience I noticed that the Belgian people spoke better English. In Paris it felt like English wasn't that popular. Of course it would be nice for some people who have learnt French to a more advanced level as they wouldn't have all these people switching to English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Steve4nLanguage Diglot Newbie Taiwan Joined 6832 days ago 9 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 34 of 67 12 March 2006 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Given the worldwide influence of English, I'm thankful that it's my mother tongue. Studying other languages has only increased my appreciation for English.
The topic for this thread is the difficulty of one's own language, and while I know that's subjective, I think most everyone would agree that English spelling is sorely antiquated. I'm studying Japanese, which entails learning hundreds (and more) of kanji, much of it by rote memorization. Acquaintances looking over my shoulder as I wade through my kanji flash cards invariably remark, "Japanese seems so difficult. How can you possibly memorize all those characters?" I usually tell them that Japanese schoolchildren too must struggle through 12 years of basic schooling to memorize the 2,000+ kanji needed for Japanese literacy. I also remind them that we native English speakers had to struggle through many years of English spelling, basically memorizing by rote the many weird exceptions. So the difficulty factors in English and Japanese are not that different, at least where orthography is concerned. Just my two cents worth... ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| awb Groupie United States Joined 6874 days ago 46 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 35 of 67 12 March 2006 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Err, I never had to memorize that stuff.. I always found it to be a bore when they had others try to memorize exceptions, though.. and I wasn't really a huge voracious reader either.
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| kiwi Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6840 days ago 15 posts - 15 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 36 of 67 18 March 2006 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I noticed that at the start of this topic there was some dispute over the diffuculty of Latin. Having been studying Latin for a couple of years now, I would argue that the rating of 4 cactuses is far to high. It grammar and vocabulary are both very simple - as speakers of any romance language (or other languages i would imagine) know the majority of the vocabulary. I think that it is 3 cactuses at the most, if not 2. It is a very logical and simple language - i believe.
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| nox Diglot Groupie Croatia Joined 6861 days ago 62 posts - 62 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English Studies: German | Message 37 of 67 20 March 2006 at 9:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting topic! I was discussing with my friend about it a few days ago. We go to the same class and are both learning Latin. I belive Latin is the easiest to a speaker of Romanian, German (and perhaps Dutch too? I'm not sure if it has a case system?) or a Slavic lagnuage. There is no doubt in that.
Croatian, for example, has a lot of equivalents in grammar ((such as tenses (imperfect, 'pluskvamperfekt', future 1 and 2..) - except the subjunctive moods - that is the advantage of Romance languages)), which makes it very easier to translate, with it's fully meaning. Someone here mentioned that the hardest foreign language to learn is the one with totaly different vocabulary, grammar, accents and everything else what forms languages. English is deffinitely not hard to learn (once when the 'r' sound is mastered :)). Most of people who are having troubles with English are either lazy or stupid (there are stupid people, you know..). The only thing i would change considering English is the writing system (ortography - You see, I'm not so sure if I wrote this propperly)). What do you think about it? There could be International, symplified, English, and the harder one - for natives). I've tried once to listen and read a text in French (read by a native speaker) and didn't understand a thing! I mean, there was no logical connection between the written and read stuff, like in Spanish). I'd like to know some Fench one day, but I'm afraid or the unforiveness of people and all those 'silent', or whatever they are called, letters.. Kiwi, have you had any special trobles with understanding the strucutre of Latin? (I'm sorry if I don't answer so soon, but I'm not able to use a computer so often these days..) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kiwi Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6840 days ago 15 posts - 15 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 38 of 67 20 March 2006 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, I consider latin a very logical language and structure does nto matter greatly in latin. As long as your vocabulary is ok in latin, sense can be made of it (ususally)
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| littlewing Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 6823 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German | Message 39 of 67 22 March 2006 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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There is some truth to the common wisdom that English is a difficult language to master--I have the utmost respect for my German counterparts who can communicate well in my mother tongue-- I believe their language is much easier to pick up than mine.
There are, as has been said, many inconsistencies in English, the most obvious to me have been the variations in pronunciation of the written word, as elucidated by the tribulations of German exchange students who I have hosted. One girl, in particular, pronounced "flood" many times with an "oo" as in "tool" or "kangaroo". How was she to know that it is pronounced "fludd"? My (linguistically and culturally insensitive) father seemed to take this as some sort of incompetence on her part, while I was inclined to think that English would be a damn sight more logical if flood WAS pronounced fl-OO-d. Another good example of the pronunciation difficulties can be exemplified in the variant pronunciation of "omb". Check out the variation between: "womb" "bomb" "comb" I only have German as comparison, so no doubt my opinion is of less value than that of the multi-lingual people on this board, but personally, I think English is a rather complex language in parts, and I certainly have the utmost respect for those who can master it. After all, I have met many Germans with a better command of English than some of my countrymen. Edited by littlewing on 22 March 2006 at 5:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7376 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 67 22 March 2006 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you! Having had to learn English, I think the regularities far outweigh the irregularities. Yes pronunciation and spelling are hard, but one can usually understand and get understood no matter what. I stick to my guns that English is relatively easy, compared to many other languages. My favorite 'easy' feature of English is of course its conjugation system. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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