|
 |
Learn a language: related or unrelated? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| PonyGirl Groupie United States Joined 5019 days ago 54 posts - 70 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 17 of 44 23 April 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Related, at least for my first. I would be so overwhelmed by a vastly different language right now. After I learn German I'm considering going to something less related, like Arabic & Hebrew, or Russian & other Slavic.
For me it depends on the language, though. Korean/Chinese/Japanese/etc have never appealed to me, not because they are radically different from English, but because... I have no idea why, they just don't. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4981 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 18 of 44 24 April 2011 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||
|
But what are we talking about when we say 'related'? I mean are we talking language family? Or a particular branch
within a family? On either definition I'm preferring 'related', yet only because those are the languages I've had contact with... I wouldn't mind learning an 'unrelated' if the opportunity arose due to work, travel or so forth. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| theomegamale Newbie United States Joined 4964 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, Danish, Thai, Greek, Hungarian | Message 19 of 44 24 April 2011 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Whether or not the languages are related doesn't matter to me. I learn languages because I love the culture (Dutch), writing (Greek), and/or sound (Danish). It's all a form of exploration.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6105 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 20 of 44 24 April 2011 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Ideally, unrelated.
If language sounds can be compared to flavours we roll round our mouths, then it would be a little uninspiring for me to only 'taste' 3 or 4 sweet languages and nothing savoury. One of my principle pleasures in language learning is enjoying how they sound on my lips as well as in my ears. My ideal 'flavour' combination: Starter course : Something light and fresh > Latvian or Italian (white wine) Main course: Something I can really get my teeth into > German (strong beer) Sweet course: Creamy and soft > Polish (hmm, maybe a bananna milkshake) But my choice of a third language will be largely governed by the availablity of native speakers in my area, as I want to speak my languages as much as possible and not just read them, whether related or not. Edited by Mooby on 24 April 2011 at 9:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hungh3 Newbie Vietnam https://tienganhmoin Joined 5799 days ago 10 posts - 15 votes Speaks: EnglishC2 | Message 21 of 44 25 April 2011 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||
|
If one is a language nerd, by their own measure, who's going to spend their free time learning languages then my guess is that they would probably select languages unrelated as it'd be more challenging to learn.
For the rest, I guess the languages they're going to learn are not much affected by how related they are to the languages they've known. Which languages we learn are usually not our decisions, but more often dictated by the places we live, the schools we go to, the spouse(s) we marry, the jobs we take, the vacation destinations and so on. But a language nerd would never mind what language needs to be learned. They'd "know them all" in due course. (Please don't take the phrase "know them all" literally, thanks!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Magdalene Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5036 days ago 119 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, German, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 22 of 44 25 April 2011 at 7:54am | IP Logged | ||
This. Dabbling in Vietnamese after Mandarin was such a relief: "This is hard, but at least it doesn't have characters (shudder)." Studying Yiddish briefly after Vietnamese was equally relieving: "It's in the Hebrew alphabet, but at least it doesn't have (shiver) tones." Moving on to Polish after those experiences has me restin' easy...well, studying with only a modicum of distress. Declensions? Ha! I laugh in the face of declensions! Latin alphabet + no tones = happy happy Magdalene. At this point I'm content with my related languages, especially since they're different enough to keep me busy for far longer than their status as related suggests. That is, Polish, for instance, provides little transparency to any of my other spoken languages even though they're all related. My next language will not be an Indo-European one, nor will it be Sino-Tibetan. My known and studied languages are looking awfully IE right now (not the primary reason I want to branch out, but a reason nonetheless). Edited by Magdalene on 25 April 2011 at 7:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Amandine Newbie Hungary Joined 4964 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Hungarian* Studies: English Studies: French | Message 23 of 44 25 April 2011 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
I don't care the language I am learning is wheter or not related. By the way, there aren't many languages which is related to my mother tongue. Maybe Finnish? But the similarity isn't too big, and I am not interested in it, so I can't see a reason to learn a related language. I learn what is appeal to me (French and in the future maybe Norwegian and Russian), and what is a must (English).
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Haukilahti Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4964 days ago 94 posts - 126 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Polish | Message 24 of 44 25 April 2011 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
I read somewhere "There's less similarity between Finnish and Hungarian than between Swedish and Spanish" and I agree. These two languages are on the opposite sides of the Finno-Ugric family. The famous sentence about the fish swimming underwater is almost the only similar sentence you can get ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
