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kyssäkaali
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5554 days ago
203 posts - 376 votes 
Speaks: English*, Finnish
| Message 33 of 53 23 February 2010 at 11:24pm | IP Logged |
pohaku wrote:
This conversation reminds me of similar ones among jugglers. The joke was that a fellow practiced and practiced to go beyond the usual three balls. He got good at four, then five, then six, and he was already in very rare territory because of the difficulty of his achievements. Then he pressed on and learned to do seven, eight, nine, ten. Finally, he learned eleven, which put him on a unique pinnacle of skill. The first person who happened upon him right after he had first done eleven came up to him and said, "Nice. Can you do twelve?" Moral: Whatever you do, do it for yourself, and perhaps for those who will understand what you are doing. Don't expect the great unwashed masses to understand and there is no pleasing them.
Similarly, the public has no clue when watching jugglers as to which moves are truly difficult. Only other jugglers know. Just like languages. Only a real linguaphile would know just how hard Georgian, say, is for an English speaker compared to, say, Dutch. |
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Fantastic metaphor there. I love it, and it really accurately describes how the commonfolk will react to you learning any language.
I guess we've all just got to come together as a band of jugglers and stick together. Because no way in hell will someone who's never juggled before understand us in the slightest, haha.
Honestly though, as far back as I can remember I just cannot recall anyone ever caring, not even in the slightest, about me dabbling in and studying other languages.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Deji
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5441 days ago
116 posts - 182 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Hindi, Bengali
| Message 34 of 53 24 February 2010 at 2:47am | IP Logged |
snoppingasusual wrote:
I think that the following languages can assure that you will be respected for
knowing
them:
Nahuatl
Lithuanian
Rapa Nui
Turkish
Greenlandic
Scottish Gaelic
Navajo
Latvian
Gaelic Irish
Basque
Icelandic
Wolof
Hindi
Georgian
Albanian
Armenian
Burmese
Quechua
Czech
Finnish
Greek
Polish
Igbo
Slovak
Hausa
Zulu
Xhosa
Vietnamese
Aramaic
Korean
Avar |
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Hindi? No Way ! its easy and has lots of cognates w/ English. Not to mention all those words we borrowed, like
thug, shampoo, bungalow and pyjama. All you have to do is learn the alphabet, which is very well organized, and
pronunciation is-well, sort of --easy. Only problem is, it's too big. Somewhat like 2 1/2 languages, with Urdu,
Hindustani, Shuddh Hindi, and Sanscritized Hindi, all in common use in India.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5423 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish
| Message 35 of 53 24 February 2010 at 5:41am | IP Logged |
kyssäkaali wrote:
pohaku wrote:
This conversation reminds me of similar ones among jugglers. The joke was that a fellow practiced and practiced to go beyond the usual three balls. He got good at four, then five, then six, and he was already in very rare territory because of the difficulty of his achievements. Then he pressed on and learned to do seven, eight, nine, ten. Finally, he learned eleven, which put him on a unique pinnacle of skill. The first person who happened upon him right after he had first done eleven came up to him and said, "Nice. Can you do twelve?" Moral: Whatever you do, do it for yourself, and perhaps for those who will understand what you are doing. Don't expect the great unwashed masses to understand and there is no pleasing them.
Similarly, the public has no clue when watching jugglers as to which moves are truly difficult. Only other jugglers know. Just like languages. Only a real linguaphile would know just how hard Georgian, say, is for an English speaker compared to, say, Dutch. |
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Fantastic metaphor there. I love it, and it really accurately describes how the commonfolk will react to you learning any language.
I guess we've all just got to come together as a band of jugglers and stick together. Because no way in hell will someone who's never juggled before understand us in the slightest, haha.
Honestly though, as far back as I can remember I just cannot recall anyone ever caring, not even in the slightest, about me dabbling in and studying other languages. |
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That's an awesome metaphor.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5423 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish
| Message 36 of 53 24 February 2010 at 5:43am | IP Logged |
Deji wrote:
snoppingasusual wrote:
I think that the following languages can assure that you will be respected for
knowing
them:
Nahuatl
Lithuanian
Rapa Nui
Turkish
Greenlandic
Scottish Gaelic
Navajo
Latvian
Gaelic Irish
Basque
Icelandic
Wolof
Hindi
Georgian
Albanian
Armenian
Burmese
Quechua
Czech
Finnish
Greek
Polish
Igbo
Slovak
Hausa
Zulu
Xhosa
Vietnamese
Aramaic
Korean
Avar |
|
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Hindi? No Way ! its easy and has lots of cognates w/ English. Not to mention all those words we borrowed, like
thug, shampoo, bungalow and pyjama. All you have to do is learn the alphabet, which is very well organized, and
pronunciation is-well, sort of --easy. Only problem is, it's too big. Somewhat like 2 1/2 languages, with Urdu,
Hindustani, Shuddh Hindi, and Sanscritized Hindi, all in common use in India. |
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Are you kidding? If I were to tell a fellow American I was learning Hindi (I'm not), they would say something along the lines of "Hindu is a language?". I'd say "No, it's spoken in India" and they'd follow up with "Yes but more people speak Indian there, so why wouldn't you learn that?"
6 persons have voted this message useful
| dagojr
Groupie
United States
Joined 5590 days ago
56 posts - 131 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian
| Message 37 of 53 14 March 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
People are often impressed if you study a language with a different alphabet. At least they are in the United States.
What are the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn that have a different alphabet?
1 person has voted this message useful
| Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5423 days ago
616 posts - 725 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish
| Message 38 of 53 15 March 2010 at 5:00am | IP Logged |
dagojr wrote:
People are often impressed if you study a different language . At least they are in the United States.
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Fixed :)
1 person has voted this message useful
| IronFist
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6438 days ago
663 posts - 941 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean
| Message 39 of 53 15 March 2010 at 5:21am | IP Logged |
Johntm wrote:
[QUOTE=JoshN]
Also, from what I have heard from several people, the otakus are typically the worst in their Japanese class. |
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My experience supports this.
I took Japanese in college, and half the class were otaku nerds. I mean, the people who only wear anime shirts to class. Who dye their hair to match the hair color of their favorite anime characters. Who make the "V" hand sign in all their pictures. Who talk about the anime they watched last night, and the anime they're going to watch tomorrow night.
And they were all seriously the WORST people in the class. They couldn't speak it. They did poorly on the tests. I didn't understand... How can someone who surrounds themselves constantly with it not pick up something?
6 persons have voted this message useful
| lichtrausch
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5961 days ago
525 posts - 1072 votes
Speaks: English*, German, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Mandarin
| Message 40 of 53 15 March 2010 at 5:55am | IP Logged |
dagojr wrote:
What are the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn that have a different alphabet? |
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Probably Greek and Russian. Rather than the easiest I'd call them the least difficult though...
1 person has voted this message useful
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