HOW much easier is your third language? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

HOW much easier is your third language?
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4772 days ago
715 posts - 1527 votes

Speaks: Russian*, English^C2, Japanese, German
Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish

Message 17 of 20

15 September 2012 at 11:46am | IP Logged

LanguageSponge wrote:

I've studied a reasonable amount of languages,
although not half as many as most on here I'm sure (German, French, Spanish, Italian,
Latin, Attic Greek, Russian, Slovene, and have messed around with Slovak and Czech).
That's a fair number, but almost all of those in that list that I learnt to speak and
use actively are in just two language families.

On a global scale, all of them are in the same family. Not trying to dispute your point (if anything, this actually strengthens it somewhat), it's just that people disregarding (or not being aware of) the existence of the Indo-European family is a pet peeve of mine.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6597 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 18 of 20

15 September 2012 at 2:31pm | IP Logged

LanguageSponge wrote:

I feel like a complete beginner going into Mandarin, as it's like language-learning in mega-slow mode compared to what I'm used to with the language families I actually know well.

Imagine how difficult it would be as your first foreign language!
In my case, this slow mode has made me experiment a lot, because I refuse to learn the Romance languages as if they were as logical as Finnish or even Latin. And I discovered the truth about myself kekeke, that I'm an aural learner and do well with a lot of input. If learning more languages coincides with expanding your horizons then you need to adjust to the change... but there's also a good change to adjust to, the one happening in you! You get more experienced and there's no reason why you should study the same way.
1 person has voted this message useful

sfuqua
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4765 days ago
581 posts - 977 votes

Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog
Studies: Spanish

Message 19 of 20

21 September 2012 at 6:20pm | IP Logged

I think that the whole idea of "languages closely related to to your native language
are easy" is an oversimplification.

Samoan is nothing like English, completely unrelated. It is pretty easy to get up to
an FSI 3. Though unrelated to English, it has a grammatical system that seems pretty
transparent to English speakers. Producing an approximation of correct pronunciation,
enough to be understandable, is pretty trivial.

Beyond FSI 3, Samoan is a beast, with very complex formal registers and pure vowel
sounds that are difficult for English speakers to produce with native like accuracy.

Tagalog is also unrelated to English, but it has a complex affix system that gave this
English speaker fits. Producing pronunciation that is understandable is easy; there
are a ton of Spanish loan words that help comprehension, but getting a grasp of the
affix system to reach an FSI 3, was really, really hard for this English speaker.

After a similar amount of study and effort, and similar amounts of time in country,
this learner was an FSI 4+ in Samoan, and I might have hit FSI 3 in Tagalog on my best
day with a generous tester.

steve
1 person has voted this message useful

Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6582 days ago
2314 posts - 5695 votes

Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

Message 20 of 20

24 September 2012 at 7:05am | IP Logged

sfuqua wrote:

I think that the whole idea of "languages closely related to to your native language are easy" is an oversimplification.

Well, of course it isn't the only factor, but on the whole it rings true to me. In your post you use the examples of Tagalog and Samoan, both of which are unrelated to English. "languages closely related to to your native language are easy" does not mean "languages NOT closely related to to your native language are HARD".

For me, learning French was sorta hard, because it was my first truly foreign language, but learning Spanish knowing French is a breeze. Learning Mandarin was also pretty hard, but knowing Mandarin, bringing Cantonese up to the same level was easy.

3 persons have voted this message useful

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