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"Easy" Slavic Language? | ||
Tags: Easiness | Slavic Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5823 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes  5 sounds | Message 25 of 44 30 September 2008 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
Brr... that's annoying ;). Can't really judge if it is easier. One thing to consider is that it uses Cyrillic, unlike Polish; Czech; Slovak; Serbian; Croatian; Bosnian; etc. (all western and south-western Slavonic languages) Edited by Sennin on 30 September 2008 at 2:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Deauville Diglot Newbie France Joined 5910 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Dutch, Italian | Message 26 of 44 30 September 2008 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Serbian uses Cyrillic.
"Easy" Slavic Language? What about Czech ? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5823 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 27 of 44 30 September 2008 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually it uses both Cyrillic and Latin script, but I believe the latter is more popular nowadays. Edited by Sennin on 30 September 2008 at 3:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| remush Tetraglot Groupie Belgium remush.beRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6057 days ago 79 posts - 94 votes Speaks: French*, Esperanto, English, Dutch Studies: German, Polish | Message 28 of 44 01 October 2008 at 11:10am | IP Logged | |||||
Jes, sed tio eĉ pli senutilas ol Espertanto, kio estas malfacile realigebla. Very likely, you don't use Esperanto everyday, nor a whole lot of other "useless" languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Deecab Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5750 days ago 106 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English, Korean* Studies: Mandarin | Message 29 of 44 02 October 2008 at 3:13am | IP Logged | |||||
Wow, I've never heard someone say Russian is harder. Not that I have experience with either one but I hear Polish pronunciation is extremely hard while Russian's isn't too bad. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6945 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 30 of 44 02 October 2008 at 4:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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If anything it's the other way around for me. Polish pronunciation LOOKS hard because of the diagraphs. When you realize that the diagraphs each represent one sound and stress is fixed, learning to speak Polish properly is relatively easy. Russian pronunciation LOOKS easy since it doesn't use diagraphs, but when you account for mobile, unmarked stress (as Volte pointed out) and palatalization, learning to speak Russian properly is relatively difficult.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6228 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 31 of 44 02 October 2008 at 5:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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My previous post wasn't discussing the relative pronunciation of Polish and Russian, but the grammar and how hard it is to learn to understand them and get the hang of the grammar. Both are tricky to get an initial foothold in, due to cases, fairly heavy inflection with irregularities, and aspect, but Polish is somewhat easier. Polish also seems to use recognizable loan words more heavily, which helps.
First: I agree with what Chung said, and I consider it a reasonable summary of how hard it is to go from each writing system to the pronunciation of the corresponding language. I'd also like to point out that both have regular changes in the pronunciation of consonants that aren't reflected in the orthography - and that Russian's voicing/devoicing/consonant cluster reduction rules are harder than Polish's sound changes. The rest of this post deals with the pronunciation itself, without respect to the writing systems. Polish and Russian pronunciation are both 'middlingly difficult' for English speakers, I'd say: harder than German/Spanish/Italian/Persian/Esperanto/Japanese, about on par with French, and much easier than Mandarin or Korean. Perhaps the hardest thing about Russian pronunciation is that it's a "buttery" language, like French: sounds and words blur together. This isn't easy to get right for native speakers of Germanic languages. Bulgarian, Polish, and all of the languages I listed as 'easy' are more 'staccato'; I find this makes both listening comprehension (especially at the beginning) and pronouncing the language tolerably much easier. Aside from that, Russian and Polish both have a few snags. Both use palatalization, although Russian does so much more extensively: most consonants have palatalized and non-palatalized forms. Polish has more contrasting sounds that can be similar-sounding to English speakers for a few letters: r, z, s, and c have not only contrasting dental and palatal versions, but also retroflex. Also, Polish has two nasal vowels. The vowels in both languages are fairly standard European vowels: hence, not that difficult for speakers of most European languages, and a fairly large pain for native English speakers, who tend to throw in diphthongs inappropriately all the time. Neither is all that difficult for English speakers to be able to pronounce in a way that is comprehensible. Both are tricky to sound good in. A number of accomplished polyglots have ear-wrenching pronunciations of one or both of them. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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