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Learn a language: related or unrelated? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Capsula Diglot Groupie Andorra Joined 5263 days ago 42 posts - 52 votes  Studies: Catalan*, Spanish, English Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 44 23 April 2011 at 1:27am | IP Logged |
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Do you prefer to learn a language related or unrelated to yours?
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| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5082 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 2 of 44 23 April 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
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Unrelated. I don't feel good speaking a language close to another language that I already know. It feels unfair, it's not worth it for me. That's why I've never learnt Spanish nor Italian. Learning something new and unrelated is like a new experience, much more rewarding in my opinion.
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| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5187 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 44 23 April 2011 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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Unrelated. It's the big differences that make languages fun for me.
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| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5069 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 4 of 44 23 April 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged |
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I guess unrelated, but whether it's related or not is irrelevant to me. I'm learning Korean and plan to learn Mandarin because of my interest in those cultures, they just happen to be unrelated to my native language.
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| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 5 of 44 23 April 2011 at 3:57am | IP Logged |
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Unrelated, for the same reasons listed above. However, distantly related (as in Germanic
languages -> Persian) might be the best of both worlds: you can have fun detecting and benefitting from cognates and similar structures, yet these are so few and far between that the language is still challenging and forces you to think in new ways. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 6 of 44 23 April 2011 at 10:28am | IP Logged |
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Looks like everybody so far prefers unrelated.
I'm going to offer up "related" as a preference, at least initially. I'm now learning quite unrelated languages compared to the first four that I learned, but my reasoning is this: Once you get to a certain level with your first or second language, it's really interesting to see how related major languages have diverged over the centuries. And more recently, how they're converging somewhat. Of course, I think the reason you want to learn another language in the fist place makes a huge difference, too, whether it's as a hobby, to enhance your job, to enjoy the literature, etc. I guess the other plus would be that if it's your third language, it might help you a bit more in better learning your own style and effectiveness of learning in general. I don't think I hit my stride until I got to my forth language. Now that I've figured out what's most effective to me as far as picking materials to learn from and what's important to spend time on and what can be glossed over when I begin a new language, I think it's become easier to take on unrelated languages. The process of laying out a learning plan has become much easier because of it. R. == 3 persons have 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 7 of 44 23 April 2011 at 10:41am | IP Logged |
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I would say an unrelated language (as for example Turkish for me) is more interesting, but a related language is easier to handle. So it has some advantages to choose a related language as I see in my choice "Danish versus Turkish".
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 23 April 2011 at 5:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 44 23 April 2011 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
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I've been learning languages that aren't closely related to my first languages (English and Scots) but are more closely related to each other.
Basically, I find myself partially understanding something and that pushes me into learning to understand it properly. That's what started me on Catalan, and it's kind of pushing me towards Portuguese and Gallician just now.... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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