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Cacti from non-native speakers of English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| trance0 Pentaglot Groupie Slovenia Joined 5751 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: Slovenian*, English, German, Croatian, Serbian | Message 17 of 42 13 February 2010 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Native speaker of Slovene:
0.5 Cacti: Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian 1 cactus: all other Slavic languages 2 cacti: all Romance languages, except for French and maybe Portuguese 3 cacti: all Germanic languages including English + French and maybe Portuguese 4 cacti: Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit 5 cacti: Asian languages(especially tone languages), Semitic languages, Ugro-Finnic languages, Turkish, African and American Indian languages I must point out that although I have merged several languages/language groups under the same cactus that does not mean I consider all languages within one group to be of equal difficulty. Among Slavic languages I would say Russian stands out, because of its difficult pronunciation and not entirely phonetic script. I believe most Slovenes find French the most difficult among Romance languages because of its ridiculously difficult pronunciation and writing (liaison, e-muet etc.), grammar is moderately difficult, more difficult than English, but not as difficult as the most difficult amongst Germanic languages. Among Germanic languages I think German is generally more difficult than English and Scandinavian languages(except for Icelandic and Faroese, which I think are more difficult than German) because of the case system and all in all more difficult morphology. But English has a complex phrasal verb system and complicated historical script and also a lot of discrepancy in vocabulary plus a fairly difficult pronunciation(significantly more difficult than German pronunciation from Slovene native`s point of view). Since I have never studied any of the Non-Indo-European languages, I can but guess about their difficulty. However, I do believe they are more difficult than any from the Indo-European language family as they are more distant. Edited by trance0 on 13 February 2010 at 8:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 42 13 February 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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With one exception (Ancient Greek) I'll stick to the languages I already have studied, and I will avoid fractions. I'm Danish, and this is my list:
1) Swedish, Norwegian, Esperanto 2) English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Icelandic 3) Modern Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian 4) Classical Latin, Russian, Irish, (Old Greek), Tagalog 5) .. I have chosen to disregard the problems of getting enough study materials in for instance Afrikaans and Icelandic and the abundance of materials for English. With enough materials Afrikaans and Icelandic would be even easier, but for very different reasons (easy morphology versus shared vocabulary). English seems easy because we all have learnt it (and because it is almost impossible NOT to learn it in Denmark), but the absurd spelling and the many idiomatic constructions more than outweighs the ridiculously easy morphology. The problem with such lists is that your native language isn't the only relevant factor - every language you learn makes changes the table. For instance I have learnt French, Latin, Italian and fairly early, so adding a few more like Romanian, Catalan and Portuguese was not a big problem for me - but I based the list on the hypothetical situation that I only knew Danish, and then the Romance languages are further away than the Germanic ones. If I had made a list based on the knowledge of Danish, English and French all other Romance languages except Romanian would have two-cactus languages. With Danish, English plus Spanish, both Portuguese and Catalan would have been one-cactus languages, Romanian still a three cactus and French and Italian two-cactus languages. NB: In my opinion Modern Greek is easier than Russian, and Irish seems to be at least as bad as Russian, - maybe worse because verbs and nouns are inflected at both ends. NB: concerning Latin, see comment below Edited by Iversen on 13 February 2010 at 10:32pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 19 of 42 13 February 2010 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't you find Latin harder than the modern Romance languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 42 13 February 2010 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, not really - but I refer to the kind of Neolatin used at Ephemeris because that's the kind of Latin I want to learn. If my goal was to write like Publius Vergilius Maro or Marcus Tullius Cicero then I would have to add one cactus.
EDIT: I have now moved Latin to the 4 cactus group, but as classical Latin. The point is that most people probably think of difficult classical texts when they hear the word Latin, and therefore it is more correct to point to this level of Latin - even though this is as unjust as asking for the level of Baudelaire or Proust of someone who studies French. Edited by Iversen on 13 February 2010 at 10:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5848 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 42 13 February 2010 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Native speaker of German - Cacti for my languages:
1 cactus: English, Dutch, Esperanto 2 cacti: Danish 3 cacti: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese 4 cacti: Latin 5 cacti: Turkish 6 cacti: Ancient Greek, Russian Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 13 February 2010 at 9:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6529 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic | Message 22 of 42 20 February 2010 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Native speaker of Spanish:
1 cactus: Portuguese, French, Catalan, Italian and some other romance languages 2 cacti: Dutch, English, Romanian 2.5 cacti: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish 3 cacti: German, Latin, Icelandic 4 cacti: Turkish, Greek, Vietnamese, Thai and slavic languages 5 cacti: Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Hebrew, Hungarian, etc. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| arkady Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States rightconditi Joined 5401 days ago 54 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, Russian* Studies: German | Message 23 of 42 22 February 2010 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find it interesting that Russian is so difficult for German speakers. I speak both Russian and English and find the grammar structure and gender concepts similar to Russian. Vocabulary of course is a different matter and my English is far more helpful to me than my Russian.
Overall it would appear that the more random languages you have (not in same family) the easier it becomes. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 24 of 42 22 February 2010 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
It may be that even though the grammatical structures are somwhat similar they are more complicated in Russian. By the way, all three being Indo-European languages, English, German and Russian are related. Edited by tractor on 22 February 2010 at 5:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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