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Learn a language: related or unrelated? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 26 of 44 26 April 2011 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I chose a language because I love it not because of it's relation to my native language.
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 27 of 44 26 April 2011 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I do not study any language related to my native. Why? Because I understand Slovak very well and don't have a reason to learn Polish or Russian or any other Slavonic language. Yes, there are some of my favourite writers but even they didn't change my opinion.
The rest of my languages is related to each other. English got some vocabulary from French, even though that's the only similarity but still, and learning Spanish is great to enjoy something simple thanks to it's similarity to French. It's really relieving to get the feeling "I'm learning fast and it is quite easy for me" compared to feelings I get from my school subjects. The real challenge for me will be German, which is on my hit list. Ask me after half a year of that one :-) But these all are still related as european languages. I do not learn the really different ones because I know too well that I do not have the amount of time they would require so I can only admire learners of Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic etc. Edited by Cavesa on 26 April 2011 at 2:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 28 of 44 26 April 2011 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Studying related and unrelated languages is fun in different ways. An unrelated language really starts you off with a blank slate and puts you in a completely new system. Things don't work the way you're used to and the sensation is thrilling and exciting. The sense of exploration is exhilarating. A related language has the thrill of speed. You're advancing in huge strides and can feel your understanding growing with every week. You also get to explore the etymology that gives you a new perspective of languages you already know.
In the end, I prefer unrelated. My study of Cantonese and Spanish lacks a certain intensity that I found in studying Mandarin. Cantonese was for a long time difficult to study because of the sheer boringness of learning new pronunciations for characters already familiar to me. But There is a charm in it, too, as I said. I like both. 5 persons have 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 29 of 44 26 April 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I can definitely relate to this with Turkish. But it's not just intensity. It's also a passion for the language. The last time I had this much passion for a language was when I was learning Italian - God, close to two decades ago. And truthfully, I don't really know why there's that extra passion. But, I think I've also learned how to sort of maximize my time learning the language, as I mentioned further up the thread. Maybe part of that passion comes from a confidence that I didn't have earlier on in learning languages. In any case, I'm not going to over analyze why and just run with it as far as I can. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 44 27 April 2011 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I go for related languages - I have done the Germanic and Romance languages, and I like having one or more reference languages whenever I start a new project. In fact it is part of how I learn languages. You could say that it is crossing the fence where it is lowest, but isn't that the logical thing to do? If there is a low point in the fence, that is...
The point is of course that it is harder to start a new family. Within the Indoeuropean languages I began my studies of the Romance languages so early that I almost have forgotten how it was - maybe things stuck better in my mind then, but my methods were also less efficient, and I didn't have the same background as now. Since then I have 'attacked' the Hellenic family with Modern Greek, the Slavic one with Russian and the Celtic one with Irish (which right now is on the shelf). It took me several years to get to the upper end of the intermediate stage with Greek and Russian, whereas it only took me a few months to reach a similar level in Portuguese, Dutch and Afrikaans. And when I finally began studying another Slavic language in earnest (Polish) it felt like a breeze compared to Russian, precisely because I could draw on that hardwon Russian. Outside the Indoeuropean family I have only worked seriously with Bahasa Indonesia, which has the reputation of being easy (which only means that it is easy in the beginning, but can be slippery and difficult later). That is not much foundation for sweeping conclusions, but I don't feel that it matters that it isn't Indoeuropean. During the time where I studied Irish I felt that this language was considerably harder to learn than Bahasa I., even though it belongs to the Indoeuropean sphere. Actually I feel that the Bahasa I. way of making sentences is closer to English than the Irish one is. So relationships between languages have to be fairly narrow to be of value, else you have to start from scratch. And no, I don't feel that it is boring to study related languages. I like to really cover a linguistic territory in the same way I like to visit more than one city in each country. Edited by Iversen on 27 April 2011 at 11:30am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6961 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 31 of 44 27 April 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Related , because is easier . I am lazy .
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| Haukilahti Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4965 days ago 94 posts - 126 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Polish | Message 32 of 44 27 April 2011 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Not so sure about "easier". I'd say English is easier for an Italian speaker than French. Besides, I have my unorthodox theory that French for an Italian would be more difficult than French for a non romance native speaker who has studied Italian; or that Polish would be more difficult for a Russian than for a Westerner who has studied Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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