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The Asian 3 - Japanese easiest? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6185 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 43 18 December 2009 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Something many people fail to include in the difficulty is culture. Yes it's in this site's language profiles but it has an irrelevant approach for my point.
Japanese culture is vastly different from western culture. I won't even begin to go into the details but it's so different that I often hear complaints from native Japanese themselves that it's hard to maintain friendly relations with others. Even if you can study Japanese to an advanced level linguistically, learning how to use the language on a cultural level is an entirely new experience. If you factor in culture I'm tempted to say that Japanese is among the absolute hardest languages, though of course with so many thousands of languages and cultures I'm sure there are some solid contenders out there. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 10 of 43 18 December 2009 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Slightly off topic but this week's Economist has an article about languages and their vote for most difficult one.
Entertaining. (Guess it would be helpful to post the link. Sorry about that. I have the print edition.) Edited by jimbo on 18 December 2009 at 5:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 11 of 43 18 December 2009 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's... nice. How about some spoilers then? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 12 of 43 19 December 2009 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.
Some of the languages they mention as being tough are Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Chinese, Turkish, Estonian, Ubykh, Kwaio, and Xhosa. Tuyuca wins their vote for most difficult. As for English, they say "English is a relatively simple language, absurdly spelled". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 43 19 December 2009 at 7:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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You basically nailed it in your first post.
Japanese: - easy pronunciation - kana is pretty easy - kanji is a pain + multiple readings - no spaces between words (really, what were they thinking here) - decently-hard grammar Korean: - impossible pronunciation (2 or 3 versions of most consonants that all sound the same, 22 vowels that are all slurred together and sometimes the same vowel is pronounced differently, etc.) - simple writing system - hanja is optional - spaces between words - grammar is like a more difficult version of Japanese Chinese: - difficult pronunciation, no phonetics, tones - hard writing system - nothing optional at all about kanji. You must learn them all. Have fun if you're reading and come across a word you don't know. Have you ever used a kanji dictionary? (actually you probably have since you're fluent in Japanese) - no spaces between words (but given the nature of Chinese, I assume they're not necessary) - I've heard the grammar is rather simple I've studied Japanese a bit over the years. I've tried Korean for years and always failed miserably. Never really studied Chinese but I've read about it. Edited by IronFist on 19 December 2009 at 7:15am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 14 of 43 19 December 2009 at 10:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Looking up words is a lot less difficult these days with the aid of an electronic dictionary or a iPod. (I use KT dict C- E). One of the difficult problems for beginners has been eliminated. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6263 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 15 of 43 19 December 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 16 of 43 19 December 2009 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
How does one look up kanji on an iPod?? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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