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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 17 of 35 01 October 2012 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, let's take Turkish. It actually has no grammatical gender, and has been written in a Roman script since 1928. But its syntax is very non-Indo-European, depending very heavily on suffixes, and little of the vocabulary is transparent to speakers of West European languages without studying the language first. Then there is Arabic which does have grammatical gender, a different script and also little transparency of vocabulary, then there is Chinese, Japanese. German is not comparable in difficulty to any of them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6439 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 18 of 35 02 October 2012 at 5:53am | IP Logged | |||||
There's a section somewhere in "the Loom of Language" by Bodmer where he talks about Russian, and says that Russian, Lithuanian, and Sanskrit are so ridiculously complex that anyone wishing to attain fluency in them should take the necessary precaution of being born and raised in a household that speaks that language (he phrases it a little differently but that's the idea). It says something about Russian's case/gender/plural system makes that of German seem like child's play. I don't have the book with me (it's at my parents' house) but if you really want I can look up the exact quote next time I go there. Edited by IronFist on 02 October 2012 at 5:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bohy Newbie Australia Joined 6615 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English | Message 19 of 35 03 October 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I cannot think of any instances where the alef has the short "a" sound like in "at", rather than the long "aa" sound in "car". The alef always has a sound similar to the "aa". Perhaps you are confusing the true alef with the "alef" that is used as a carrier for the short vowels at the beginning of words. The Persian true alef at the beginning of a word looks like this آ. Because short vowels in Persian need to sit on top of one of the letters of the alphabet, the ا form at the beginning of a word is used to carry the short a, e, o vowels (you also use it for the long "oo" because the و cannot start a word by itself - ie you would write او). If I remember correctly, it can also do the same in the middle of a word (as can the ﯽ and the و) though I think it these instances they would also take a hamzeh. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 20 of 35 02 December 2012 at 7:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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German has so many compounds (and some very long/odd ones) because the genitive case died out in dialects, and subconsciously people restored to using compounds in both dialects and subsequently Hochdeutsch where the genitive would be used in other languages instead.
Furtheremore, in many cases, in German, it is the adjective which serves as the base, and not the noun, if we were to adopt this principle in English we would say: beautifulness or loveliness instead of beauty, and ''concept of beauty'' would be ''beautifulness concept.'', and the ''notion of the concept of beauty'' would be ''beautifulness concept notion''. Let's compare: English: speed limit (3 syllables) Norw.: fartsgrense (3 syllables) Dutch: snelheidslimiet (4 syllables) Danish: hastighedsbegrænsning (6 syllables) German: Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung (7 syllables) For learners, speed limits and fartsgrenser are much easier than Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen. speed limits in Norway: (6 syllables) fartsgrenser i Norge (6 syllables) Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen in Norwegen (12 syllables) (Germans themselves find this word too long, so in colloquial styles they use ''( das) Tempolimit '') Edited by Medulin on 02 December 2012 at 8:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sserg Diglot Newbie Romania Joined 4381 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Swedish | Message 21 of 35 02 December 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've also run into Mark Twain's article. Although I find it very funny and true, I must
say that German is not an impossible language. If you keep practicing everyday and constantly study the grammar, you will get fluent in no time. Edited by Sserg on 02 December 2012 at 12:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 22 of 35 02 December 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The German grammar is relatively easy.
The vocabulary is the problem, especially long compound words and genders of nouns (die Cholera, das Rheuma, der Puma). Most people here are studying (or have studied) more than one language. It's easy to focus on German when it's one's one and only foreign language. I speak Italian much better than German, and I studied Italian for 2 years, and German for 6 years. German is one of those languages for which you really have to spend some time in the countries where it's spoken. It's easy to learn German if you live Germany (or Austria). (On the other hand, Spanish and Italian can be learned with ease even outside of Italy...They enter your ''brain'' easily. For German, the production [speaking] is essential for learning. The language is complex, like Latin. And if you don't speak the language, your German will be like Latin...You will be able to write and read, but not really to speak). So frau Merkel's idea (''Immigrants should learn German before coming to Germany'') does not really help. Edited by Medulin on 02 December 2012 at 7:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 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 23 of 35 02 December 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have never lived in Germany and I can speak fairly decent German. Gender mistakes
always occur, even Germans make them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4401 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 24 of 35 02 December 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
But as a Dutchman, you're 50% of the way there with German, i.e. when it comes to syntax and vocabulary. Obviously you will have the same troubles as others with noun genders and things like prepositions. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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