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Languages that are mostly about vocab? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Dylanarama Newbie United States Joined 5440 days ago 30 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 11 25 January 2012 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
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What languages out there are mostly about learning vocabulary? Languages without gender ( or where gender is easy to figure out) and where there are no declensions or conjugation(or where it is very easy to figure out and regular.) Are there any natural languages out there like this? Languages with a few irregularities are okay too, but the fewer the better. Edited by Dylanarama on 25 January 2012 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5257 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 2 of 11 25 January 2012 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
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I know about only one (I'm typing in it right now), but as far as I know Chinese also has little or no conjugations.
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| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 11 25 January 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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Try Cantonese. Mandarin is similar, but I think Cantonese grammar is easier.
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| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 11 25 January 2012 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
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I would say just about any language that's far away from your native tongue (meaning a different language family.)
You'll spend more time on vocabulary simply because there just aren't that many cognates in an unrelated language. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 11 26 January 2012 at 12:52am | IP Logged |
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Some linguist or other (I think maybe John McWhorter) once wrote that most languages
either provide the obstacle of tones (e.g. Chinese languages) or that of declensions and gender etc. Creoles often (always?) develop from pidgins but are actually fully-fledged languages (you can express complex thought in them) but without all the unnecessary crap like arbitrary gender that most languages accumulate over time. Hence my suggestion: Tok Pisin (the vocab is largely derived from English too, it's fascinating- if only there were decent resources for learning it I'd start in a heartbeat!). I think I read somewhere that Indonesian fits your description too, but I'm not sure. Anyone fancy petitioning Assimil for a Tok Pisin course ha ha? Edited by Random review on 26 January 2012 at 12:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 11 26 January 2012 at 3:30am | IP Logged |
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Just because a language doesn't make extensive use of conjugation or declension doesn't mean it doesn't still have a complex grammar that needs to be learned. English and Mandarin have both been mentioned, but I'd say both are excellent examples of languages whose complexity of idiomatic grammar fully compensates for any simplicity in conjugation or declension. Of course, all languages have their idiomatic peculiarities that would render otherwise-correct phrasing to be perceived as incorrect, but often the learning curve imposed by aspects like conjugation and declension actually provides a supportive structure that renders subsequent use of the language more intuitive and manipulable, whereas in languages in English and Mandarin, you often just need to straight-up learn how each particular idea is (arbitrarily) expressed.
As mentioned above, formal Indonesian might be a possibility, but be prepared to completely relearn the language if you ever want to use it on the streets. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 7 of 11 26 January 2012 at 6:13am | IP Logged |
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Indonesian pretty much fits your description, yes.
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| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 8 of 11 26 January 2012 at 7:32am | IP Logged |
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Although it does have gender, Norwegian grammar is otherwise fairly close to English. The verbs don't conjugate for person or number. The tenses are formed in a similar manner to English. The verbs that are irregular are mostly the same ones that are irregular in English. The nouns don't decline. They just have singular/plural and definite/indefinite, which is very easy. Even the vocabulary isn't so bad since there are quite a few cognates. The only problem is that you can learn it fairly well and when you come to Norway, still understand nothing if you end up in a place with a strange dialect.
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