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If I hear "Spanish is easy" ONE more time | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| L1539 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5360 days ago 27 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 25 of 137 30 May 2010 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What you're saying is true, but at the same time, you hardly need to have perfect grammar or sound totally "natural" in order to be able to express most of what you want to say and be understood (thank goodness this is the case, because if it wasn't, languages--at least in their spoken form--would be virtually impossible to learn!). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6945 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 26 of 137 30 May 2010 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The activities I mentioned had to do with progressing from an intermediate towards advanced knowledge. Whether advanced knowledge of a particular language is a worthwhile goal is really a personal decision. Edited by frenkeld on 31 May 2010 at 2:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5387 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 27 of 137 31 May 2010 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's impossible for me to really give an opinion on Spanish vs. French, because though my French comes faster from the ground up than Spanish did--I already have Spanish in my brain helping me along.
So I can't really comment on which is *actually* easier. If anything, I would say Spanish's reputation for being easy compared to French comes down to two things: 1) clearer, better orthography 2) clearer diction and pronunciation (theoretically) to an English speaker (i.e. no "throaty" French R, cleaner vowel sounds, etc.) Grammatically I don't find a large gap between the two, and I find much of French's vocabulary even more blatantly transparent to English than Spanish's. Ironically the things that make French "harder" for Anglophones are qualities that it shares with English: tricky spelling/orthography and a more peculiar range of sounds and pronunciation. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5450 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 28 of 137 31 May 2010 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You are right. Sorry if I am going too off topic, but by this logic, would Icelandic, Swedish, or German be easier to English speakers at the beginning but become harder later on? They share the basic vocabulary which is Germanic, but as the learning progresses, the higher vocabulary of Icelandic, Swedish, and German tend to be made from existing Germanic words while English tends to borrow from Latin. Edited by chucknorrisman on 31 May 2010 at 2:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6071 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 29 of 137 31 May 2010 at 3:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think English has more Latin-based words than Germanic ones. And Icelandic's grammar is relatively difficult. German's declension makes things difficult for English speakers, as well.
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| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5587 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 30 of 137 31 May 2010 at 4:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Any language is difficult.
I can read literally anything in Spanish, when it comes to spontaneous speaking and audio comprehension (like movies, music etc) I have a lot of trouble, seriously. That's what you get for having no natives around... 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5354 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 31 of 137 31 May 2010 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, this is my belief. I have studied German for much longer than Spanish, and am at a much higher level of speaking/writing/etc, but randomly choose a word for a higher concept, and most likely the Spanish and English will be cognates, whereas the German will be much less obvious to a native English speaker. For example, in German there is "Verantwortlichkeit" whereas in Spanish it is "responsibilidad". Hmm, any guesses as to the English meaning of these words? The English relations to simple German nouns made them so much easier to learn, for me, then the basic Spanish nouns of a similar type. I also get tired of hearing how easy Spanish is to learn, just because of the fact that I find it to be a bear to learn! To me, I always find it funny that people always say that Spanish is easier than German, for example, since German has a few cases to deal with in addition to the (simple) verb conjugations. On the other hand, Spanish has tons of tricky verb conjugations and tenses, which make my head spin every time I try to speak in Spanish. With French compared to Spanish, I cannot comment, but Spanish has its share of difficulties, which I feel all to often under-stressed 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Silvance5 Groupie United States Joined 5496 days ago 86 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 32 of 137 31 May 2010 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The easy part of Spanish is the grammar. I went through several grammar workbooks in a little over a week and had a good understanding of all the grammar. I can't say the same about German.
However, beyond that Spanish is no longer easy. Developing listening comprehension, learning to speak spontaneously, and developing natural sounding pronunciation is difficult in any language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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