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Study languages you are bound to fail in | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 73 of 96 16 March 2014 at 11:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well this might be relevant, I did a course in Skolt Saami which has something like 500 speakers of which 320 are natives or something, and of course I couldn't learn it to any functional degree in one week's intensive course but all the Saami languages are so close to one another that all skills in any of them translate to skills in any others, even if I knew I would "fail" Skolt as of now.
Plus, everything about the language is so wonky (I love it). Fusional languages really twist my brains. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4666 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 74 of 96 16 March 2014 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not really, it's one of easier Slavic languages: 1. it has no dual of Slovenian 2. no pitch accent of Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian 3. it has no diglossia of Czech 4. it has no puristic tendencies of Slovenian and Czech, so it's full of loanwords 5. it has no open and closed O's and E's typical of Slovenian (à la Portuguese, French, Italian) 6. it has no countless dialects of Slovenian and Croatian, meaning it's pretty standardized so, what's the problem? Edited by Medulin on 16 March 2014 at 6:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4030 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 75 of 96 16 March 2014 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Edit: I'll just stay on topic, I will share my views some other time. Edited by Stolan on 16 March 2014 at 9:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 76 of 96 16 March 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There's only one good word to describe all of this (in Russian no less): мелочи.
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4030 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 77 of 96 16 March 2014 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is more irregular than relatives. The forms can't be predicted, random changes, stress is all over. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Russian_verbs Pitch accents offer a bit more predictability actually, the Lithuanian accent is that only a rising accent can be fixed on the first syllable only, and if it is a "lower" accent on the first syllable, then something will have to move in the paradigm. Russian stress doesn't over any hints from contour. Language complexity is something going on for me now, its not that a language has something, but why two related languages can be so different in difficulty. Like Bulgarian having mobile stress and nearly twice as many phonemes as Macedonian yet Macedonian doesn't have mobile stress, it makes me wonder what went differently. Edited by Stolan on 18 March 2014 at 12:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 78 of 96 17 March 2014 at 5:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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You might actually find Mandarin refreshing. I gave up on Portuguese, having grown frustrated with the grammar, but never once felt like giving up on Korean, which is supposed to be much harder to learn for me. When trying to speak, it still occasionally does my head in, but I've always found it a joy to study and progressed accordingly. Just because Mandarin has a reputation for being difficult, it doesn't mean you're bound to fail (indeed, better not set yourself up for failure by believing it can't be otherwise).
I believe I'm probably going to 'fail' with Persian, if failure means never achieving high levels of proficiency. While it's pleasant and interesting to study, I haven't yet been able to foster an obsession for the language and I think that's the most decisive factor. I do feel an irresistible pull towards Mandarin and have felt it for a good while. Therefore it's more likely that - in the long run - I'll succeed with Mandarin more than with Persian, even though I'm in the situation you describe as ideal for Persian, having a native speaker boyfriend. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 79 of 96 17 March 2014 at 7:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hm. You guys are not really helping me in suppressing my urges for Mandarin :-)
A language with a simple grammar and where I may have less trouble with my dyslexia does actually sound kind of appealing. The problem would of course be the tones, which I have little experience with. Perhaps I'll make Mandarin my next project after Russian if I ever get to the point where I think that I know "sufficient amounts of Russian". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 80 of 96 17 March 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged | |||||
We're not supposed to. I want to do Mandarin at some point as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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