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Ranking based on writing and reading | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 40 19 September 2008 at 9:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Over the years I have found that some languages are much more phonetic than others. What I have also noticed, however, is that some languages like Greek may be easier to read than to write. For example, in Greek one sound is represented by a number of letters. What's your opinion? I would also like to know whether anyone has stopped learning a language because of a particularly hard writing system. Thanks.
Ranking Reading Very Easy Spanish (European or areas where ceceo is used and Latin American or areas where seseo is used), Turkish, Greek, Ukranian, Czech, Gujurati, Punjabi, Korean, Vietnamese Easy Italian (when reading Italian you can't tell which vowels are long and which ones are short), German, Hindi, Nepali Moderately difficult French, Russian, English Very difficult Arabic, Pashtu, Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Baluch, Persian, Hebrew, Burmese, Lao, Thai Extremely hard Japanese, Chinese Writing Very Easy Spanish (European or areas where ceceo is used), Ukrainian, Turkish, Italian (if you know the word you should be able to write it), Gujurati, Punjabi, Korean, Vietnamese Easy Spanish (Latin American or where seseo is used), Czech, German, Hindi, Nepali Moderately difficult Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Baluch, Pashtu, Urdu, Greek, French, Russian, English Very difficult Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Burmese, Lao, Thai Extremely hard Japanese, Chinese For each of the categories the languages are in order from easiest to hardest. So for example, even though Chinese and Japanese are both Extremely hard one is harder than the other. Definitions Very easy Once you've learned how the writing system works you can write any word or read any word correctly almost all the time. Easy Once you've learned how the writing system works you can write any word or read any word around 80 percent of the time. Moderately difficult You can read the word correctly or write it correctly around half the time. Very difficult Even native speakers have considerable trouble mastering these writing systems. Extremely hard Almost every word has to be learned in order for you to be able to read and/or write it. Edited by John Smith on 24 September 2008 at 11:32am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| GBarr Newbie Uruguay Joined 5977 days ago 29 posts - 30 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish* | Message 4 of 40 20 September 2008 at 10:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I think French is easy to read but hard to write.
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| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 5 of 40 21 September 2008 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
I haven't done enough French to be sure but I don't find it that easy. I mean think of words like femme (fam) and fils (fis). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6665 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 6 of 40 21 September 2008 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Italian should definitely be in the 'Easy' category for reading! It's one of the most regularly spelled languages and I think it's easier to read than German, Greek and Czech.
You say that Italian doesn't mark vowel length, but why should it? Vowel length is not phonemic in Italian. In German it is, and it's not always marked, e.g. in Swiss German 'Masse' can be 'mass' or 'measures' depending on the length of the 'a'. And how do you know that the 'a' in 'das' is short but long in 'Glas' (except in some linguistically underdeveloped places such as Hannover)? The 'moderately hard' category is rather broad. Although French and English have some spelling irregularities and are not overly phonetic, they are not very difficult to read; I think they're not in the same ballpark as Arabic or Persian, where many native speakers have problems with reading. Apparently, Russian is not hard to read or write. The high literacy rates in Russia seem to support this. To mention two languages not on your list: Turkish is in my opinion the easiest (natural) language to read or write and Japanese is my candidate for the most difficult. Edited by Marc Frisch on 21 September 2008 at 4:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 40 21 September 2008 at 5:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd disagree about Russian being not very hard. There are few Russians that only make occasional minor mistakes, and rather many that make loads of them :/ Russian is easy to read if you don't mind sounding like a child or someone from Vologda region though ;)
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| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 8 of 40 21 September 2008 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Reading your comments I realized that whether or not a particular language is hard to read or not depends on whether or not your a native speaker! Lets take Italian for example. A native Italian speaker does not need to have a writing system that marks vowel length as he knows the words. On the other hand a learner doesn't. Since this website is about learning language I would like to look at these languages from a learners point of view. Please check the ranking. I have changed it to reflect your views. Thanks. Edited by John Smith on 21 September 2008 at 6:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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