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Choose a language based on elimination? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6439 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 17 02 October 2012 at 6:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Process of elimination?
For example. Say you want to learn a language, but you want it to be one that you think you will have success with. So you narrow it down by eliminating languages that have traits you find difficult. For example: Ideal: no noun gender (English, Japanese) Acceptable: obvious noun gender (Spanish) Unacceptable: complex, non-obvious noun gender (German, Russian) Ideal: easy plural rules (English, Spanish, Japanese (technically)) Unacceptable: complex, non-obvious plural rules (German, Russian) Ideal: Latin script (Romance languages, Scandinavian languages) Acceptable: Phonetic and/or relatively consistent script (Russian, Korean) Unacceptable: Non-phonetic script or ridiculously difficult phonetic script (Chinese, Thai, Sanskrit) Ideal: easy word boundaries (Japanese, German) Unacceptable: difficult word boundaries (Korean, whatever you find hard) Of course, I've noticed that interest trumps all of these things. So this exercise is kind of pointless. I love Korean but haven't made much progress in it in 15 years (on and off). I don't really like Spanish that much but did well in it during the two years I took it in high school. And that actually kind of bums me out, because I want to like Spanish, and living in America it would be helpful to know it, but I just don't like it. I don't get any joy from speaking it. I don't really like the way it sounds. Etc. :( Discussion: Have you ever picked (or decided against) a language because of its properties rather than just "I want to learn this language"? Similarly, have you ever tackled difficult hurdles to learn a language you liked very much even though it was harder than you would've preferred? Edited by Fasulye on 02 October 2012 at 8:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 17 02 October 2012 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
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When contemplating my next language, I do similar things, except I reason the other way around. Latin script is a big turnoff for me.
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| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4561 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 3 of 17 02 October 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Similar to Ari, I do some thinking in the opposite direction. European languages are increasingly starting to feel like familiar ground to me, which takes away some of the excitement of learning a new language, so I've looked around for interesting grammatical and phonological features to wrap my head and tongue around. New scripts, on the other hand, usually aren't that interesting to me.
For the record, while I'm not particularly deterred by irregular noun genders and plurals, they're the polar opposite of what I look for in my prospective conquests; they just add to the already formidable amount of raw memorization involved in acquiring a language. 2 persons have 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 4 of 17 02 October 2012 at 9:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't care that some elements of grammar are more "difficult" (read: not like language
xyz I know). The whole point is that it's different, you accept that it is. I eliminate more based on "do I care about this language" and "am I going to consistently speak it" and "what are my emotional connections to the language." But "it has noun genders?" No. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 5 of 17 02 October 2012 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||
One language I'm not studying because it's too difficult is Icelandic. Pretty much a jackpot according to your list. LOL I just remembered how I asked someone how many tenses German has. As if it's the only thing that can be really complicated in a language XD 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5228 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 6 of 17 02 October 2012 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I dismissed Mandarin and Cantonese because of the tones, but that was just in addition of other, more important factors, so you could say that they were just the last straw :)
Edit: on the other hand, ALL my languages are harder than I'd like them to be, but that doesn't change things a single bit, so why worry about that? Or maybe I misunderstood the question... Edited by mrwarper on 02 October 2012 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5567 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 7 of 17 02 October 2012 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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The ultimate elimination test - speak it fluently already (English). OK, I'll go with
English. Now, can I get a refund for my membership? :-} 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4641 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 17 02 October 2012 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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What is difficult is relative and depends not only on your mother tongue but what other languages you have learnt. So far I guess I have concentrated on "easy languages", i.e. languages that are within the same families and with a grammar and a vocabulary which is not very "exotic". The most difficult language I have embarked upon is Russian, however I didn't find that the script was a problem at all, and the gender and case system I could easily get my head around. The verb aspect is a bigger challenge, although you can see slight parallels to Spanish or Latin. Actually my biggest challenge is to expand vocabulary, as I spend a lot more time memorising Russian words than I did when learning Spanish or German (lack of cognates).
If my motivation was big enough (and I had plenty of time), I could start learning any language, regardless of its level of difficulty. However, aspects such as interest in the culture would be more important for me than purely a linguistic interest. I once flirted with the idea of learning euskera, but there I concluded that although it is a fascinating language, timewise it was not worth it for me personally. If I had lived in the Basque country (or had a basque-speaking girlfriend) things could have been different. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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